


Sent From The Toilet

by fitzgarbage, mahistrado



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Boba Shop AU, M/M, Misunderstandings, Rom-com, college au (lol), evil guts, korean american characters, one-sided enemies to friends to lovers, severe lactose intolerance, sweet late summer sort of love, the greater los angeles area
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:02:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 36,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24280999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fitzgarbage/pseuds/fitzgarbage, https://archiveofourown.org/users/mahistrado/pseuds/mahistrado
Summary: Innocently enough, his dad asks, “Are you sick?”“No,” Vernon says. He can’t make eye contact when he says it, because he’s realizing how actually stupid he is. This is the second time he’s had milk in a week, and for what? His vibes? The best vibe of all is not having diarrhea.
Relationships: Boo Seungkwan/Chwe Hansol | Vernon
Comments: 130
Kudos: 401





	1. Chapter 1

When Vernon was eight, he started getting stomach aches. They weren’t severe at first, but his symptoms escalated very quickly. Before long, every day, after eating his school lunch and drinking his carton of 2%, he’d raise his hand and ask his teacher if he could go to the restroom. “It’s an emergency,” he’d whisper, and his teacher would say, “It can’t be an emergency every day.” But Vernon would give her a pallid look that tried to express without words that things could get really serious if he didn’t leave right away. He’d rush to the bathroom, sometimes without enough time to even get a hall pass, then he'd suffer for a while, and then he’d go back to class in shame at the things his body was capable of doing to him.

At first, he didn’t tell anyone about it. It was embarrassing, and also, he doesn’t always realize when things are a big deal. But finally, his third grade teacher called his parents to let them know how Vernon was spending a lot of his time in the afternoon these days. Despite all the evidence, she thought he was trying to get out of practicing his fractions.

Vernon’s dad is a gastroenterologist. Also, every member of his family, even his mom, suffers from some amount of lactose intolerance, though Vernon’s is by far the worst. For example, Vernon’s little sister can have a small amount of ice cream now and then. Any other member of his family can have something that comes with a little bit of cheese or a creamy dressing. They don’t consider what things are cooked with butter. Maybe they get a little tired for an hour or two, but they’re usually okay.

Vernon, however, cannot process any dairy, period. It’s good that they eat so much Korean food at home. If he was trying to figure out how to eat American food all the time, he’d have actually died by now. He’ll never forget the time he tried a slice of pizza just for fun and googled “Can you die from lactose intolerance?” from the toilet. Anyway, he got really used to having dietary restrictions as a kid, so it doesn’t even bug him anymore. It’s just another thing to explain to new people.

The longer Vernon goes respecting his fragile gut, the more sensitive it gets. It’s serious enough that there are places where he simply can’t eat at all. People really will put milk in anything, just for fun. Like right now, he’s at a boba shop that he’s never visited before, and he’s trying so hard to get the barista to give him a straightforward answer.

“I know you have soy milk, but sometimes it’s in the flavors themselves,” he’s explaining. “If it’s a pump it’s probably chill, but if it’s a scoop, can you look at the ingredients list? You don’t even have to read it to me. I just want to know for sure there isn’t any dairy.”

It isn’t helping that the barista is this really cute, really rude, really gay boy. He’s wearing a pressed yellow button-down under his apron, and he seems like he showed up to his shift already pissed off. But he wears the cheekiness well; his attitude would be borderline charming if it wasn’t putting Vernon in bodily danger.

Vernon should probably give up on trying a flavor, but the cute barista is making him want to seem chill. Vernon’s a sucker for some brashness & a super expressive face. This guy has great skin and soft features and looks naturally judgmental. When Vernon hopped off his skateboard in front of this hole in the wall a couple minutes ago, the barista was loudly performing some K-pop girl group song for his blue-haired coworker, who was doubled over in laughter. It was great; it made Vernon laugh too.

Honestly, Vernon would like to flirt. So he can’t just leave, and he’s wasted so much of the barista’s time begging for ingredients that he can’t give up and get green tea now. He has to go for it. Maybe he’ll die, but in order not to make himself look any worse, the risk is probably worth it. “Alright,” he finally gives in. “The honeydew milk tea is good, with soy, I think.”

“With boba? Like, tapioca pearls?” asks the guy, very nearly rolling his eyes as he says it.

“Uh, yeah, boba please.”

The barista doesn’t say anything else. He doesn’t offer Vernon a stamp card, even though they’re displayed right there. He just holds out a hand on a floppy wrist, takes Vernon’s card, and swipes it without looking. Leaves to get the drink started. Vernon goes to sit down and the barista snaps at him. “Hey. Hey, no. You have to sign the receipt.”

It feels a bit directed, like he hates Vernon specifically, but Vernon has literally done nothing to this dude, so he just writes it off as a bad day. He signs the receipt and goes to sit down again.

He sets up his laptop and plugs in his headphones and decides, despite the random hostility, this could actually be a pretty good place to start studying. It’s close to his college, cheap, small, dimly lit, open until ten. Their snack menu looks good and relatively safe. The bench by the window where he sets up is comfortable and there’s an outlet right next to him. The wifi works okay. It’s in all ways better than the coffee shop where he’s been studying lately, which is right next to the college and therefore always extremely loud and crowded, full of people he knows who want to catch up, with a strict two hour time limit on wifi use between purchases. And of course it’s better than trying to work at home, in his room where he can’t get anything done, or at the kitchen table where no one will let him.

This place is good. It’s small and homey, and the drink, once Vernon gets it, is surprisingly delicious. So at least there’s that, he thinks, as his stomach quietly begins to boil.

xxx

"Really, I don't mind my roommates," Seungkwan is saying, his hands busy loading the half sweet, light ice green milk tea into the shaker machine. "It's just that our relationship is mostly me wiping their crumbs into the sink every morning. How are you making night crumbs every night? Like, every single night?“

"Boys are seriously so bad," Jeongyeon replies, sealing off two drinks at once and sliding them onto the pick-up counter. She tugs her uniform hat back down over her hair and sighs, snagging the next drink ticket and a new cup. "Number 145! Longan green tea, half sweet with pearls.“

Seungkwan is sweating. He sighs, loud. He hasn't checked the time, but he knows there are at least two more hours until close. Maybe three. He was up at half past seven this morning, as he is every morning, because that's when they start sawing rebar at the construction site next to his weird apartment. He proceeded to endure six million hours of class, including an oral presentation for his intro philosophy class that half of his classmates slept through, even though Seungkwan made some great points. And now he's here, crafting beverages for the thirsty masses.

Because he is very good at his job, out of the corner of his eye, Seungkwan sees a customer approaching the register. He puts on his customer service smile just in time to whirl around and greet them.

“Hiiiiii,” Seungkwan says, sunny. “Welcome to Half & Half. What can I get started for you?”

Then, he sees. It’s ‘96 Romeo + Juliet Leo DiCaprio meets the human personification of the _100_ emoji, back to ruin his day. The smile drops straight off his face.

“Hi,” says the third Sprouse twin. “I like this song.”

It’s Ariana Grande. He rolls his eyes. Seungkwan intones, “I mean, yeah. It’s Ari. Do you know what you want?”

2018 Justin Bieber hefts his backpack onto his shoulder and looks uncomfortable. And, good. He says, “Uh, not yet. What I got last time was really good, but I think it had milk powder in it? Not to like, question your expertise or anything. Do you have any other recs?”

Seungkwan narrows his eyes incrementally. There wasn’t milk in the drink that he got last time. Seungkwan knows because he spent five whole minutes being interrogated about it. “I mean, there wasn’t, but okay.”

Seungkwan knows he’s being so rude, but he’s reaching the limits of his body, mind, and spirit. He doesn’t have the capacity to overextend himself for the fifth member of Big Time Rush. The Half & Half clientele is usually devoid of Venice-adjacent whites since they don’t have paper straws and overgrown monsteras, and Seungkwan really, really prefers it that way.

The guy pulls his hat off and pushes a hand through his stupid hair as he searches the menu again. Seungkwan almost feels bad, but he knows the ancestors would be proud of him for standing his ground. “Ah, well. I can always just get like, a fruit tea. It’s all good.”

Seungkwan sighs. “Get the Red Bean Matcha Latte,” he offers. “Have you had red bean before?”

The dude has the audacity to quirk his head to the side and give Seungkwan a look like he’s dumb before saying, “Yeaaaah, I’ve had red bean before.”

“Great,” Seungkwan snaps, punching in the order. Over his shoulder, he calls to Jeongyeon, “Hey, Red Bean Matcha,” pauses to sigh and roll his eyes to the ceiling, “with non-dairy milk. Emphasis on the non.”

When Seungkwan turns back, the guy looks relieved and he’s smiling with all of his teeth. Seungkwan isn’t so obstinate as to not recognize that he’s like, a hottie, despite the fact that he’s also the kind of person who wears beanies in 85 degree weather to maintain his “vibe.”

“Thanks so much, seriously,” says Echo Park Harry Styles, looking at Seungkwan all sincere from under his bangs.

Mercifully, Seungkwan gives him a sweet smile as he takes the receipt back. For tipping 25%, he’s at least earned that.

xxx

Against his better judgment, Vernon goes back to the boba shop, and against his better judgment, he orders another dubious beverage at the recommendation of the cute, increasingly rude gay barista.

This time, he sits down and falls right into a video he’s editing for his friend. All the shots he took with his old camcorder of Tobi in the neighborhood where they grew up are starting to come together: drinking grapefruit Jarritos from the taco truck, skateboarding at the park by their old high school, vibing on the sidewalk, getting on the bus. It’s starting to look really good, everything as golden and perfectly summer as Tobi’s track, and Vernon’s itching to be done with it.

He makes progress for a while, but then, during a quiet moment in his headphones, Vernon hears the barista loudly complaining in Korean, so he listens for a minute. He’s talking about how much he hates his roommates, then how much he hates his US History professor, then how much he loves one of his coworkers, who he thinks is very sexy and powerful. He’s talking about a girl, but he still sounds gay. Then he’s saying, “If this bastard destroys the toilet again, I’m reporting him to the police.”

Well, that’s what he gets for eavesdropping. Just to make it go away, Vernon starts the video from the beginning with the sound up in his ears. He’s so embarrassed, even though he _did_ destroy the toilet. It’s the barista’s fault for poisoning him. He can’t make it obvious that he’s heard, though. The barista is only talking like this because Vernon is clearly zoned out listening to something else.

After that, he determinedly gets back into the video, and manages to focus enough that he doesn’t actually drink more than a few sips of his latte before it’s time to start heading home. He packs up all his crap and takes the drink with him, holding the cup as carefully as he can in one hand as he skateboards up the wide, filthy sidewalk to the train station.

He doesn’t quite finish his suspiciously good Red Bean Matcha latte before realizing he’s done something extremely bad. He’s still got a stop to go on the Gold Line when it starts to get deadly serious. It’s been so long since he’s made a mistake this grave that he almost forgot just how foul his insides could get.

The fact that he makes it home under the sick, beating heat of the sun is a testament to the resilience of the human body. He throws his skateboard in the grass, runs in the side door and is diving into the bathroom before the screen has slammed shut behind him. It has passed the point of just being a stomachache. He’s all clammy now. He might throw up.

He’s in the bathroom for a while. It’s long enough that he has time to repent and promise himself he’ll never be this stupid again. When he’s done, he slithers to his room and spreads out on top of his bed. For a long time, he just stares at the ceiling and waits for it to pass. The dim, cool, slightly stuffy air in his room is comforting. He’s lived in this room his whole life, so even the shadows are familiar, and the lazy spin of the fan, and the window shut tight against hot breeze and the yellow vinyl siding of the house next door. Like a little womb. It settles his stomach.

Finally, he can get up, so he does. He smells food, so he heads to the kitchen. On the way, he passes his mom working on something at her computer, and she looks up at him to say, “How you doin’?” She’s concerned.

“I’m good,” he insists. “I don’t wanna get into, like. Yeah.” He laughs awkwardly. “I’m good.”

“You know yourself,” she says thoughtfully, but she’s still narrowing her eyes like she’s trying to figure out what she’s supposed to do to help. To be fair, so is Vernon, so he just goes to the kitchen.

His dad and sister are cooking together. It looks like japchae, and smells really good, but Vernon probably won’t be eating for a while. In Korean, his dad says, “Hey, kid.” It sounds like he wants to say something too. His parents probably talked about it while he was praying for a swift end.

Vernon has talked about his guts with his dad often enough in his life. Being a poop doctor has made him completely shameless. Also uniquely helpful, but mostly shameless. Neither of his parents understand that their concern is humiliating, that it’s easier to deal quietly with discomfort when it comes up and pretend it doesn’t exist otherwise.

“What’s up?” Vernon says. He’s playing it cool. If his dad asks, he was in the bathroom reading a novel from front to back. He was taking a nap. He was waxing his entire body. Nothing evil happened in there.

Innocently enough, his dad asks, “Are you sick?”

“No,” Vernon says. He can’t make eye contact when he says it, because he’s realizing how actually stupid he is. This is the second time he’s had milk in a week, and for what? His vibes? The best vibe of all is not having diarrhea.

“Do you want me to schedule you another allergy test?” his dad asks. “You were still in high school last time you had one, right? If you’re getting new food sensitivities, it could be helpful.”

Vernon makes a weird sound that doesn’t really mean anything. He says, “I’m good.”

“Why don’t I schedule you one anyway,” his dad says with an air of finality that sparks a bit of panic in Vernon, stirring the glass noodles.

Vernon doesn’t know how to say no to that, exactly, because he can’t explain why he’s sick, even really to himself. Just say no to dairy, idiot. It’s never been hard before. It’s just that the cute barista would get a lot out of Vernon giving up, so now he can’t. But he should give up _anyway_ , because he _can’t eat that_.

In the end, he tells his dad, “I think I just have a bug. I think I’m getting better. Don’t make me get an allergy test.” In English. “They suck.”

His dad says, “Okay. But please tell me if it doesn’t get better soon. Your mom has trouble with eggplant, and Allison can’t eat coconut anymore, so you never know. Anything could be bothering you.”

“Why are we so allergic?” Allison asks over her shoulder from the stove. She’s dumping the noodles into a bowl and dropping scallions and mushrooms in the pan.

“Yeah,” Vernon says suspiciously, agreeing with his sister. “Actually, why _are_ we so allergic? Why did you bring us into the world with so much to overcome?”

He’s being goofy, feeling dispirited after being tortured first by his body and then by his well-meaning parents, but his dad gives him a weird look. He says, “Hansol, I know it’s hard, but I’m proud of you.”

Blegh. It’s too much. Vernon would almost rather hear his dad talk more about his poop than deal with the meaningful eye contact. He says, “Proud of you too, dad.” Then, just to be somewhere else, he wanders back into the living room.

xxx

Seungkwan loves his spicy and smart and beautifully deranged best friend Dahyun. They met in band camp before freshman year of high school and they’ve been inseparable ever since they caught each other at lunch close to tears over how bad their sock tans were going to be for the rest of their lives. They were the gayest Homecoming royalty ever. She even got him his job at Half & Half through the underground Korean Lesbian Whisper Network, aka she took Public Policy 101 with Jeongyeon their first semester at LACC and let him know they were hiring.

What Seungkwan is trying to say is that he and Dahyun understand each other better than anyone else on the whole planet. Except for right now, as Dahyun has decided to try to ruin his life. They’ve just grabbed coffee at the on-campus shop between classes and parked themselves at an outdoor table when disaster strikes.

“That guy?” Dahyun says, stirring her iced Americano with one hand and pointing directly at his least favorite customer with the other. “He’s cute. You guys would have kids with the hugest mouths of all time.”

“What? What are you saying right now?” Seungkwan sputters, batting her evil pointing finger out of the air. “I just told you he’s my nemesis. Stop pointing!”

“I’m just saying,” Dahyun shrugs, catching her straw between her lips and innocently rolling her eyes to the sky. She opens her mouth all the way and points at it. “Like, double the diameter of my mouth. At least.”

“I’ve never felt so misunderstood by you,” Seungkwan snaps miserably, caught between shooting her a dirty look and keeping his eyes on Timothée Chalamet. Of course they go to the same school. Of course he’s not content simply torturing Seungkwan with questions about dairy at his place of work. Seungkwan also has to watch out for him now while he’s trying to get a quality public education.

“I understand you perfectly,” she sniffs. She pushes her sunglasses back up onto her face now that she’s had a chance to get a good look at the guy. “You’re mad because this guy doesn’t drink milk? Get real. Mina can’t drink milk either. We’re biologically ill-equipped to drink milk.”

“ _We_ are,” Seungkwan rebuts. “Not him. He just makes my life hard and has too many stupid sunglasses.”

“Whatever,” Dahyun says, looking completely unconvinced, and mercifully, her short attention span wins out over her love for stoking chaos once the guy slips safely into the library. She unlocks her phone and pulls up a Pinterest board of assorted brightly colored items: a bulk pack of tropical Skittles, lipsticks shaped like ice cream cones, phone charms. “Enough with your vendettas. Help me pick a present for Nayeon’s birthday.”

xxx

“Vernon” is a regular now. They have the same conversation about milk every time he comes in and Seungkwan is existentially and culturally exhausted. He has been doing his best to convey to so-called “Vernon” that he will never care about his veganism, but there is only so far he can go without getting fired. Jihyo, their hot sexy assistant manager, is on shift with him and Jeongyeon today so he’s on his best behavior. He didn’t even roll his eyes while talking Vernon out of getting passion fruit green tea by argument of winter melon milk tea being Seungkwan’s favorite drink.

“You’ll love it,” Seungkwan insists, waving a hand to dismiss his concerns. “Trust me.”

“Vernon” is wearing a blue beanie with polarized sunglasses perched on top of it. Sin upon sin. He looks hesitant, but at Seungkwan’s impatient eyebrow raise, he acquiesces with a small grin and says, “Alright, alright. I’ll trust you.”

Seungkwan hums a vaguely approving noise in the back of his throat as he rings up the order and doesn’t even comment on Vernon’s delicate constitution as he enters in his order for spicy fried chicken. When Seungkwan slides the drink across the pick-up counter, he calls the order with an entirely neutral, “67, Winter Melon Milk Tea with soy.”

However, Seungkwan’s restraint runs out when Vernon disappears behind the wall that divides the kitchen from the front of house and gives a loud sigh to attract sympathy from Jeongyeon at the deep fryer.

“So many white people come here now,” he whines in Korean, in an attempt to not be the rudest person alive. Unfortunately, he’s never been able to do anything about the volume of his voice. “Really, did we get put in an evil Yelp collection?”

Jeongyeon snorts, and responds in English as she drains the excess oil from the chicken she’s frying. “Yeah, we’re on a list called _Best Bubble Tea for People Who Like Mean Little Baristas._ He’s fine. You’re just mad he’s hot and you can’t ignore it. How do you even know he’s white?”

Seungkwan gives her a blank stare and moves on in lieu of dignifying her incorrect argument. “All I’m saying is I am _tired_ , Jeongyeon. Like, no, we don’t have _oat milk_.” He puts that in air quotes for emphasis and rolls his eyes, slumping against the counter to indicate his exhaustion.

“The drama is great, yeah, keep it up,” Jeongyeon comments, flipping the bite-sized chicken pieces into a takeaway container and turning to face him. She smirks as she presses the container into his hands. “Order up for your sexy colonizer man.”

“I hate you,” Seungkwan hisses. He whirls around with as much drama as his work apron will afford him to the sound of Jeongyeon’s awful witch cackle.

He passes back to the counter just in time to hear an alarming clatter and catch the blur of flannel that Vernon is passing off as his personality disappearing behind the bathroom door.

“Chicken, spicy level 3?” he tries, sticking his neck out over the counter. He pushes through the swinging half-door and sets the chicken next to Vernon’s laptop, peering nosily toward the bathroom.

Jihyo, who is counting her drawer, quips without looking up, “Nice of you to bring it out to him, Kwannie.”

He opens his mouth wide to protest, but is cut off when Jeongyeon yells up from the kitchen. “Wait, did he go in? Nose goes on bathroom clean!”

Before he can even think to move, Jihyo’s got one finger on her nose and the other still counting her quarters in even little clinks into her drawer. She looks up only to laugh her sweet angel laugh at him and it’s all he can do to groan, resigned to his fate as he drags his heavy feet back behind the counter.

xxx

The bus pulls up to his stop with a noisy hiss and Seungkwan picks his head up from where he’d been resting against the window. He unfolds his body and double-checks he has his things before edging his way out the back door. The night, once he steps out into it, is at the confusing edge of early fall chill and late summer warmth and he can’t decide if he needs to pull on his cardigan. He rights his messenger bag across his shoulders. It’s a short walk home; he decides to go without.

His building is painted three different colors, like the maintenance team just went until they ran out and then finished off with whatever they had lying around. It doesn’t bother Seungkwan too much, especially compared the oddities inside of the apartment. The lobby is nice enough. It is a place he can return at the end of the day that is less than an hour away from work and school by public transport, and that’s the point.

Seungkwan climbs the stairs, ignores the vague chanting noises coming from the end of the hallway, and squats down at eye level with his doorknob to get the one specific angle that makes his key work. When the lock turns after only two tries, he calls that his win for the day.

He pushes into the apartment hesitantly, and his whole body deflates with relief when he’s greeted with only darkness and the low murmur of activity muffled behind both of his roommates’ closed doors. He doesn’t mind his roommates, but he doesn’t have the energy to make the mood right now. He pulls out his phone and tucks it between his shoulder and ear as it rings his mom. Seungkwan makes way toward his room in the purple stillness of the apartment, his bag falling off his shoulder to the floor the second he gets inside. He starfishes onto his bed just as she picks up, room still dark around him.

“Honey, you’re getting in late,” she says, by way of greeting.

“Yeah,” he sighs. “The bus was late. Or I missed it. I’m not sure. But I’m home now.”

He closes his eyes and imagines her standing at the sink in the yellow kitchen of their condo in West Covina, clearing her dishes from dinner. “How was your day?”

“Oh, you know. Same old thing. I talked to your grandma today, she’s going crazy.” He hears the sound of the sink start up in the background of the call and he smiles to himself. “Before you say I’m the crazy one—she is the crazy one. I promise.”

“We can all be the crazy one,” Seungkwan offers, blinking his eyes open to track the moving car lights from the street painting slow moving streaks where wall meets ceiling.

On the phone, his mom scoffs and the dishes clank together. “You’re the craziest. Why are you working so hard? You need rest.”

“I’m resting right now.” Seungkwan stretches his legs out, his knees cracking. He takes a deep breath and his lungs ache with it after a whole day of holding his chest tight. His eyes fall shut again. “I can’t rest too much, though. I have homework still. Ugh, and I was going to clean the bathroom tonight. Mommy, how come you never told me boys are gross?”

“How would I know?” She laughs, and the bustle on her end goes quiet. “Make sure you use white vinegar to disinfect, you remember. Don’t waste money on that Lysol stuff.”

“Duh.” Seungkwan sits up with a low groan. He fumbles for the little switch by his bed that turns on the soft overhead light that he prefers to the freaky fluorescent ceiling light that came with his room. “Okay, I’m gonna go. Call in the morning before work?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she says. “You go. Go to sleep soon too, crazy boy. Talk tomorrow.”

“I love you,” Seungkwan says, and he has to work hard not to cry about it. He must be even more tired than he thought. It’s been mostly fine living away from home, and it makes more sense, for sure. It’s more practical. But that doesn’t make it less hard.

“Love you, my baby.”

The line goes quiet. Seungkwan allows himself one more moment of exhaustion before he pushes to his feet and gets going again.

xxx

Vernon hops off his skateboard a little inelegantly, trying to balance the weight of his backpack and hold his phone to his face without completely eating shit. He tucks it up under his arm as he pulls open the door to Half & Half with his other hand. In his ear, his dad is saying, “If it’s still happening next week, I’m scheduling another allergy test.”

Vernon hovers in the doorway to try and maintain distance between this conversation about his guts and the barista at the heart of his gut problems. He only ever gets lost in the dairy sauce when the barista antagonizes him into it and he knows it. Vernon thinks his coworkers were calling him Seungkwan the last time he came in. Vernon figures he should at least use his name if he’s going to keep turning his stomach inside out. He sighs. “Okay, dad. Yeah. I got it.”

“Remember to write down everything you eat, so you don’t forget. And if you can save labels for me, even better.”

“I knoooow,” he says, drawing out the word, feeling petulant. When he glances up, Seungkwan is staring at him with wide eyes and he has to mentally replay whether he accidentally said anything about poop. “Okay, I have to do my homework now.”

“You’ll be home for dinner? Mom’s cooking something French.”

“Extra butter for me, please,” Vernon jokes weakly and is rewarded with an ironic _ha ha_ from his father. Vernon says his goodbyes with a hasty _peace out, dad_ in English and approaches the counter, smiling apologetically.

“Hi!” Seungkwan chirps, brighter than Vernon has heard him the entire time he’s been coming to the shop. Vernon is so taken aback that he checks over his shoulder to see if Seungkwan is greeting someone else.

“Um, hi?” Vernon replies, hesitant. Then, with more confidence, he adds, “Hey. How’s it going?”

“You speak Korean?” Seungkwan blurts. Vernon freezes his smile on his face. He gets that a lot, but it catches him more off-guard with the sudden shift in attitude.

Vernon shrugs and shifts his weight between his feet, feeling overly aware of his clothes, and the way he styled his hair this morning, and what he’s doing with his face. "It was my first language, yeah.“

“Oh,” Seungkwan squeaks. “That’s so cool! That’s awesome.”

Vernon doesn’t think it’s cool and awesome; it’s just normal. He glances up at the menu and tugs at his shirt where the skateboard under his arm has rucked it up. “Thanks,” he says politely. “Can I just have an Oolong tea, no sugar, with grass jelly?”

“Of course,” Seungkwan says, tapping in his order. Vernon doesn’t want to think too hard about what’s happening. He hands over his card before Seungkwan asks for it, and he pretends to read the seasonal specials on the standing placard next to the register instead of watching Seungkwan study the name on his debit card. He’s not trying to rub it in. It makes him feel bad that Seungkwan clearly feels bad about making it weird.

When Seungkwan hands his card back, it’s with a hand at his elbow that Vernon mirrors reflexively. “Thanks,” Vernon says, making sure to give him a friendly smile, so he knows it’s chill. Seungkwan smiles back, and Vernon feels maybe a little less stupid.

He sets up halfheartedly at his usual table, and tries not to think too much of it all while he waits for his drink, but it’s hard. This kind of stuff gets all deep in his brains in a way that doesn’t even make sense to him all the way. The wifi connects when he opens up his laptop and he watches his push notifications catch up in the corner of his screen; first texts, then KKT, then emails.

Vernon looks up sharply when his drink is set down on the table, a yellow straw balanced on top of the heat-sealed plastic top. Seungkwan has one hand on his hip and an awkward smile on his face. “Oolong, no sugar, grass jelly.”

“Oh,” Vernon says, blinking up at him. “Thanks.”

He pulls the drink towards him and punctures the lid with a practiced stab. Vernon returns the awkward smile and slurps his drink, catching a mouthful of grass jelly. It feels like Seungkwan hovers over him forever before he reaches into his apron to pull something out and slides it across the table to Vernon.

It’s a short stack of loyalty cards, all punched to the free drink mark. Vernon spreads them out a little on the table, taking in the apology for what it is. It sinks into his stomach and feels so much worse than what happened at the register. And that just sucks so bad. It’s really not Seungkwan’s fault, it just does. Vernon keeps it off his face as well as he can.

Seungkwan says, with a pleasant tone completely new to Vernon, “You’ve been coming so much and today, I realized I forgot to give you one. So, yeah. Now you have a bunch!”

“Oh, thanks so much, dude. That’s so nice, seriously.” Vernon calls a sincere smile to his face. He tucks them into the front pocket of his backpack.

Seungkwan looks pleased, his lips turning up at the corners and his shoulders visibly relaxing as he turns to go back behind the counter with a little wave. Vernon sips his drink for a moment before he opens his phone and stares at it blankly for a minute. Then, he slips his laptop and pencil case back into his backpack and shoulders his stuff.

At the register, Seungkwan looks up as he makes his way towards the door. Vernon makes sure to wave goodbye and offer, “I forgot I have to go pick up my sister. See you later, though.”

Seungkwan nods eagerly, and waves back. “See you next time!”

Escaping feels good for a second before the feeling bad about needing to escape swoops in instead. Seungkwan was trying to be nice. It was probably a mix of a bunch of things that made him feel like he needed to apologize—maybe for poisoning him, maybe for talking shit for weeks in a language he didn’t know Vernon could understand, maybe for not reading past the _Vernon_ on his debit card. Vernon gets being annoyed by white people and he gets being annoyed by fussy customers and he definitely totally gets being annoyed by someone you think is a fussy white customer with evil guts. It’s not about that.

He doesn’t know what it’s about. It’s his own problem and he feels bad for having it at all.

Vernon steps onto his skateboard and pushes away from the shop, a little sad about the free drink cards that are gonna go to waste at the bottom of his backpack. It’s not that big of a deal, but it’s probably a better move for everyone if he just finds a new place to study.

xxx

“How do you live like this?” Vernon asks Allison over the kitchen table the next afternoon.

She looks up from her history textbook with her eyes slightly narrowed. “Like how?” she asks.

“Like, mom just took my phone?”

“Well, you were texting,” she says, like that’s a reason to get your phone taken away. She's hardly paying attention to Vernon. She writes something in her notebook.

Vernon leans back in his chair. “I was texting someone about school,” he says.

She scoffs. “You were texting Tobi.” She has a slight lisp and a strong LA accent, and she’s sixteen, so everything she says sounds self-important.

“I was not texting Tobi,” he says. He was actually texting Wonu. And it was about school, in that they were talking about where at school they were gonna meet up tomorrow to go grab burritos between classes. So. It was relevant. Anyway, Vernon’s 21, and his grades are good, so he shouldn’t still be putting his phone in a basket during homework time.

"If you stopped complaining," Allison suggests, "Maybe you'd be done with your homework sooner.“

She highlights a long strip of her notes in bright pink highlighter.

"If _I_ stopped complaining? Wow, wow. Okay." He grins at her, the queen of whining. "It's not even about the phone," he insists. "I just can't focus."

Everything at home is too familiar. He’s used to chilling out and joking around and eating at home. Plus, his mom is a teacher so she can't help but hover, which makes him want to stop working altogether. Every time he thinks about something that's wrong with his workspace at home, he's reminded about the things he liked about studying at Half & Half.

It’s not even that he’s still upset about it. He was barely even upset about it in the first place. What happened with the cute barista at the boba place has happened so many times that he's used to it. It just blows that studying at home sucks as much as he remembered it sucking and it's too awkward to go back now.

He's having trouble paying attention to his reading, which is actually fine, because it's not due until Friday, and he'll be one of three people who does it anyway. It's an English prereq at the city college. It's probably easier than the 11th grade homework Allison's working on.

But that doesn't mean he can do it right now. He's antsy. He feels like a little kid, running his hands through his hair and shifting in his seat and staring at the word _countenance_ in his book for like a full minute, thinking about absolutely nothing. The clock on the wall is ticking and his mom is rustling meaningfully around in the other room.

"Okay, I'm done," he finally says to Allison. He's been giving it his best for like 45 minutes. "I really can't focus right now.“

She manages to judge him without looking up from her page or speaking. Vernon gets his phone from the basket on the counter.

 _vibe-ius interruptus_ , he texts Tobi. _latin for my vibes have been interrupted. im going to the skate park_.

Tobi responds right away: _i'll meet u!_ He's probably wasting time a mile away at his house, too. School's only been back in for a couple weeks, and it's so weird to be using his brain again full time after a long, sticky summer where all he had to do was bus tables a couple days a week. Most of his time was spent with his small group of neighborhood friends, running around and borrowing various cars to go to the beach and being annoying at the mall when it was too hot to do anything else.

Tobi's already at the deserted skate park when Vernon gets there. He looks really cool with the sun behind him, in a big t-shirt and shorts, dangling his legs from the top of the big ramp with his skateboard across his lap. He waves as Vernon rolls up.

"Hey, man," Vernon says, plopping down next to Tobi and offering a fist bump. "Were you turning into a liquid before this or just me?“

"Oh, I was melting for sure," says Tobi, stretching his arms up above his head with a groan. "I had to wait for my mom for like an hour after class, but my phone was dead. I was sitting in front of the science building looking at clouds, then I started thinking about the future.“

"You can't think about the future," Vernon says ominously.

"What was I supposed to do? My phone was dead." Tobi smiles.

"Anything other than that," says Vernon. Then, "I'm tired as hell.“

"From school?" Tobi asks. They don't go to the same college, because Vernon wanted an excuse to get out of Pasadena every day, but Tobi's parents teach at the college here. It's kind of a bummer, but they still hang out a bunch, and Vernon enjoys the commute by himself.

"Nah, not school," Vernon says. But then there isn’t another reason to be tired, so, "Well, yeah. Just getting back in the flow.“

"I feel it," Tobi says. "I think I hate all my classes."

Vernon nods deeply. He kind of likes his classes, but he’s not as serious about school as Tobi is. Like, Vernon has to go to college, but he doesn’t have to study anything in particular to make his parents proud. He doesn’t even know what he’s studying yet, he’s just vibing through his first couple years. He’s getting prereqs out of the way and taking some electives just for fun, like music appreciation and graphic design. He’ll have it figured out by the time it matters.

But Tobi’s parents are a lot more academically strict than Vernon’s, and he’s got to study something useful or they’ll never relax, so he’s majoring in business. Though he always says he’s learning useful shit for when he does music full time, he doesn’t like it that much. It kind of sucks for him, but it’s cool that he knows what he wants to do, at least. Vernon’s just floated from one interest to another his whole life and never really stayed anywhere long enough to get settled in one place. It’s cool that Tobi knows exactly what he’s all about.

They skate around for a couple minutes, but the lethargy is real. Vernon gently eats shit after a failed kickflip, then sits down and doesn’t get back up.

Tobi comes to stand over him. He blocks out the sun, holds out a shadowed hand to help Vernon up. "Yo," he says thoughtfully. "I want a Slurpee."

They skate to the 7/11 and get candy and Slurpees, then they walk the streets for a while, just sipping. It’s finally starting to cool off for the evening, but the sidewalks are still baked. Tobi sticks out his tongue and it's blue. Then, he shows Vernon a verse he's been working on with his hand cupped around his tinny phone speaker. They land on some random bus bench in South Pasadena, freestyling and laughing and eating skittles as cars stack up on their evening commutes.

Vernon skates home a few minutes later into shadows growing long, sunlight turning orange while the sky goes lilac gray, and finally feels relaxed.

xxx

A few days later, Vernon stares blankly at the refrigerator for so long that Allison asks him if he’s fallen asleep with his eyes open. He tells her he’s wide awake, but then he tries to remember any thought he’s had in the last five minutes, and nothing comes to mind. Something about... ice, maybe? A staircase? So maybe he was asleep.

It’s been a week of trying and failing to focus at the kitchen table, and Vernon finally decides his brain might just not work very well at home. But he’s still not in the mood to try a new place, not in the mood to be looked at by any new baristas. So, he sucks it up, ties an extra flannel around his waist in the morning and starts studying in the cold library for a couple hours after his classes.

After about a week, the routine sets in, and he finds that even though he hates being cold and the vibes are fully soulless, he can get a lot done. He has a favorite table in a favorite room now. Sometimes his table is taken, but he has a second favorite table, too. Obviously it would be nicer if he had something to sip, but he’s saving $4 and a lot of discomfort by hanging out here instead, freezing fingers aside.

Today, he’s actually on a roll with this essay for his writing class. He’s got the noisiest trap in his music library bumping at top volume and he’s grinding. He’s well on his way, in the middle of paragraph four, when he looks up from his laptop and sees Seungkwan from the boba shop in the doorway of the nearly-empty study room. When they make eye contact, Seungkwan’s determined expression softens jarringly to a big smile. He waves and comes to Vernon’s table. He sits down without asking in a way that’s both totally friendly and totally aggressive. Vernon saves his work and takes out an earbud.

“Oh, hey Vernon!” Seungkwan says brightly, a little too loudly for the library. “Wow, fancy meeting you here.”

Vernon nods slightly. Seungkwan was clearly looking for him, but that’s fine. He says, “Yeah, wild.”

“Um, how’s it going?” Seungkwan asks. He’s trying really hard, which is making Vernon a bit nervous. This is a great opportunity for Seungkwan to make everything even weirder.

“Chill,” Vernon says with a small shrug. “Just, uh, working on an essay. How are you?”

“Great,” Seungkwan chirps. “So good. But um, it’s actually good to see you, because it’s my day off, you know, and I was kind of wondering, like, where you had been lately.”

Vernon’s never seen Seungkwan act awkward before. He kind of likes it. Seungkwan goes on, “I mean, no pressure, sorry. You obviously can do whatever you want, I mean it’s good to see you because I haven’t in a few weeks. I mean, it’s good to see that you’re well.”

“I am well,” Vernon says, a bit more friendly. “I’ve been, uh.” But he doesn’t have an excuse for where he’s been. He’s been avoiding boba completely, even the neighborhood place he and Tobi have been going to since middle school, almost as if he’s not allowed to have it.

Seungkwan doesn’t make him finish his thought, which is very kind of him. “It’s just good to see you,” he says genuinely. “Well, I. I...” He looks like he’s about to apologize.

“It’s fine,” Vernon says quickly. Maybe that’s not exactly true, but in this moment he means it. “It’s chill. You’re good.”

“Okay,” Seungkwan says. He laughs awkwardly. He looks like he wants to die. He says, “You’re good too.”

At that, Vernon can’t help but smile. A sadistic part of him enjoys seeing Seungkwan embarrass himself. It’s always been the other way around before, with the gastrointestinal distress and the misguided hostility and everything. It’s cool that Seungkwan is willing to go this far, too.

Also, Seungkwan is so cute. The tight way he’s holding his face and the stiff posture actually make him cuter. Vernon had forgotten that about Seungkwan. He’d forgotten about how Seungkwan was cute enough to trick him into drinking milk three times, which never happens. But here he is, with his dewy skin and big sparkly eyes, his prim yet fashionable cardigan, his cuffed jeans. Here he is, looking like he wants the earth to swallow him. It’s really funny, but it’s also very cute.

Then, as quickly as he sat down, Seungkwan gets back up. “I hope to see you at Half & Half again,” he says, suddenly formal. “But either way, it was good to run into you. Good luck on your essay. Bye.” Then he does a little bow, turns around, and hurries off.

After he’s gone, Vernon stares blankly at his screen for a minute. He thinks about how sorry Seungkwan clearly is. He thinks about how, out of all the times this has happened to him, all the times Vernon’s been looked at like a picture of a person instead of a real person, no one has ever been quite so sorry. No one in his life has ever hunted him down at a second location to make a fool of themself because they’re so sorry. Nobody’s ever been sorry enough that Vernon felt like it was okay to be upset. It kind of makes up for it. Or at least, it mends that one little weirdness. It’s not like it never happened, but it does make Seungkwan seem safer.

Vernon thinks about that, and then he finishes his essay.

xxx

Vernon returns to Half & Half about a week after Seungkwan finds him at the library. It comes as a total surprise to Seungkwan, who has been bemoaning his own bad behavior every chance he gets for weeks.

In fact, Jeongyeon, who has never met him, recognizes Vernon when he walks in. He’s wearing a flannel and holding a skateboard and his hair is doing the flippy thing that Seungkwan is usually immune to. He’s basically a perfect example of himself, and Jeongyeon whispers, “Is that him?” so loudly that Vernon can definitely hear.

Instead of answering, Seungkwan shushes her, shoves her slightly out of the way so that he’s the only one in front of the register. He says, “Hi, Vernon!”

“Hey,” Vernon says, so cool that it hurts. Seungkwan is cool in the way that he is charming, sexy, and beloved, but Vernon is just regular cool. He’s the kind of cool where everything he does becomes cool as soon as he does it. That is not fair. He says, “What’s up, Seungkwan?”

“Ha ha,” Seungkwan says. “Nothing.”

Jeongyeon says, “Wow, I’m taking a ten.”

“Wait,” Seungkwan says back to her. “Now?”

“Yeah,” she says. “I can’t bear witness to this.”

Seungkwan lets her go and tries not to look too eager at the register. He’s annoyed with Jeongyeon, because this is not a big deal. Though, it’s true that Seungkwan has whined a lot lately about Vernon, and about how terrible his karmic balance has gotten, and how Capricorn’s ruling planet is Saturn and Saturn’s justice is swift and deadly. That’s why Seungkwan always tries to be right. But clearly, since Vernon is here now, Seungkwan doesn’t have to worry, as balance has been restored, both cosmically and within the walls of Half & Half.

Vernon puts his stuff down at the table he likes and comes up to the register. “Hey, haha.”

“No milk, right?” Seungkwan jokes, and then feels guilty immediately. It’s definitely too soon. “Haha.”

“Well, yeah,” Vernon says like it’s obvious. “I’m super allergic. So, uh, yeah. No milk.”

“Oh, allergic?” Seungkwan squeaks. “Like, to lactose?”

“Um, yeah? Really bad. That’s why I can’t have milk.”

Huh. That would explain some things.

“Oh, wow,” Seungkwan says, for lack of any other words. He feels the cosmic forces of justice rising up against him yet again. That’s fine; being struck down in his ugly work uniform might be better than living through this. “Wow. Always? Like, your whole life?”

“Uh,” Vernon says, clearly a bit uncomfortable. It occurs to Seungkwan just a second too late that he just asked a near-stranger about his chronic shitting illness. “It got bad in elementary school. So like. A long time. That’s why I’m, you know. Careful. Usually.”

Seungkwan just says, “Oh, wow,” again. He’s starting to feel like maybe he poisoned this dude.

On the speakers, _Oh! my mistake,_ the 2018 hit by iconic girl group April, starts playing.

Seungkwan says, “Did I poison you? A little?” His voice sounds weak.

Vernon says, “Oh, nah. It’s chill.” He can’t make eye contact, which Seungkwan understands.

Seungkwan is grateful that Vernon seems totally okay with absolutely everything. He says, “Haha. Whoopsie. Um. I’ll make sure your drink is, like, extra safe today.”

“Thanks, dude.” Vernon nods solemnly. “Good looking out. Can I have the passion fruit milk tea? That one didn’t, um, fuck me up.”

“For sure,” Seungkwan nods eagerly. “Well, I’ll just get that going.”

He looks at the register, and makes a split second decision to give Vernon a discount. It’s the least he can do, after... well, everything. He has so much to repent for. The $2 off can only help. “Okay, it’ll be... $2.50.”

But then, to pay, Vernon hands him one of the cursed full stamp cards that Seungkwan gave him the other week as a reparation.

“Oh,” Seungkwan forces his mouth into a smile. “I forgot about these. Then, um, it’s free.” He punches it into the register, leering like a wax figure while his insides shrivel up.

“Oh, hold up,” Vernon says. He opens a velcro pouch on his wallet and starts digging around. “I still want to tip.” He pulls out three quarters, a bunch of pennies, a dime, and some lint. He looks at it challengingly, and then he dumps all of it into the tip jar.

“You’re too sweet,” Seungkwan says weakly. He wants to die.

Vernon goes to sit down after that, which is the only kindness the world has ever offered.

He settles in and starts doing his homework, and Seungkwan gets back to his million side tasks.

It’s a slow night. There’s a little rush at about 7:30, and after that it’s completely dead. Nothing but Ladies’ Code, fridges whirring, Vernon clacking away at his keyboard, and Jeongyeon’s occasional complaints.

When there are about 10 minutes before they can lock the doors, Seungkwan starts directing all of his energy toward repelling any last-minute customers. He starts flipping up all the chairs onto the tables, starting in the corner as far away from Vernon as he can get.

The volume of their store playlist ratchets up to another level, 2NE1’s _Go Away_ blasting at top volume as is the tradition. He flips one more chair up, before he catches movement out of the corner of his eye and sees Vernon packing up. Jeongyeon is nearby and he’s saying, “Oh, sorry—you’re closing. I’ll get going.”

“You have like, five more minutes,” Jeongyeon shrugs.

Seungkwan, still on edge from the various horrors that have transpired between them, pipes up from across the room to say, “Oh, no, it’s fine! He can stay while we close. We’re friends.”

Seungkwan chooses the word _friend_ because he is not sure there is a better word for _a person whom you’re sorry for poisoning_.

Jeongyeon’s head pops up so he can see her from behind the counter, and the look in her eyes is evil. He recognizes it from the split second before she calls _nose goes_ on any number of boba shop terrors, or when she intentionally lines up his drink queue so he has to take the durian drinks even though the smell makes him barfy. And now he knows it from how she has clearly decided how she is going to get her revenge for all of his whining.

She pulls off her hat and frees the neat, low pigtails from her blue hair. “Cool, so I can go, right?”

“Um, what?” Seungkwan balks at her. He actually opens his mouth for emphasis and outrage.

She’s already untying her apron. She tilts her head towards Vernon, who is watching with the awkward energy of someone who is not sure if he’s being held captive. “Like, can I go? He’ll help you, right? You’re friends?”

Seungkwan shoots Vernon the most apologetic look he can muster, and then turns the most evil look in his facial arsenal at Jeongyeon. He’s halfway to protesting, but Vernon beats him to it.

“I can help,” he says. He gives Seungkwan an unaffected shrug, as if Seungkwan has not been the most terrible person alive to him in the very recent past.

“How nice,” Jeongyeon drawls, shouldering her purse and pushing past the counter door. “There’s not much left anyway! Have fun.”

Seungkwan can only stare in stunned silence as she blows him a kiss on her way out. The door has shut behind her before he recovers and can turn back to Vernon, who has already finished putting the chairs up on one of the tables on his side of the store.

“Oh my god,” Seungkwan says, mortified. “Really, please don’t. She was totally kidding. Her humor sucks, that’s why you couldn’t tell. You don’t need to help. Please don’t help.”

But Vernon’s already swiped a bleach rag and is wiping down all the counters he can access without entering the employee area. He says, “I don’t mind, man. What do you still have to do?”

Seungkwan decides, just this once, not to fight the universe. He takes a deep, cleansing breath, and he says, “If you want to sweep, that would help a lot.”

So Vernon sweeps while Seungkwan counts the register, and then he mops while Seungkwan wipes off all the machines and the prep table. They get to talking, and it isn’t completely mortifying.

Seungkwan asks Vernon what he’s in school for. Vernon, predictably, says he doesn’t know. Then he asks the same question and Seungkwan, probably also predictably, says he wants to go to law school.

“Wow, a lawyer?” Vernon asks. “That’s pretty fancy.”

Seungkwan shrugs. “I love to argue.” It’s an easy joke, but it’s also true. He also likes the idea of being known for being smart and making a lot of money. And, of course, he is obsessed with retribution, be it cosmic or judicial. He loves when bad guys get punished. So, yeah, “I think I’ll like it. I’m just trying to get as much done at LACC as I can, for money reasons.”

“Makes sense,” Vernon nods. He leans the mop up against a table and pulls off his flannel. He tosses it onto the bench with his backpack and goes back to mopping, sun-glowy arms exposed. Seungkwan forgets what number he was on and has to start counting a stack of ones from the beginning again.

It’s a huge relief that the air between them starts to change while they’re working. Maybe because they’re alone now, or because their hands are busy so they don’t have to figure out where to look or how to stand, or because it’s dim and weird in the shop after close, like it’s stopped existing to the world, so they can let go of some things too. Seungkwan manages to land a joke about fryer oil and sees Vernon laugh for the first time. His mouth opens huge and he throws his head back and cackles. Vernon looks less cool when he laughs than Seungkwan would have guessed. He likes it.

While Seungkwan is in the back dumping out the mop water and Vernon’s up front pleasantly straightening the condiment stand, _Nobody_ by Wonder Girls starts playing from Seungkwan’s excellent playlist. That’s Seungkwan’s favorite song by his favorite group in the world, so naturally he’s belting along when he comes back up front. Vernon’s kind of looking at him, so Seungkwan forces eye contact and sings loudly. He starts doing the dance, too.

Vernon looks amused, but not like he knows what’s going on. Seungkwan sings, “Nobody nobody? Nobody nobody?” Then he says, “Don’t you know this? It’s a classic!”

Vernon is smiling like he doesn’t know what else to do. He says, “I don’t listen to K-pop.” Then, quickly, “This is really good, though.”

“But it’s _Wonder Girls_.” Seungkwan can’t hide his shock.

“I’ve heard of them,” Vernon says, like that helps.

“So has everyone. They’re superstars.” Then he goes back to belting along, showing off just a little.

Vernon is actually better at Jeongyeon’s job than she is, so it doesn’t take long for them to be done. Seungkwan sets the alarm and runs back out through the dark store to slip through the front before locking up behind them.

Vernon is waiting with his weight back on his heels, hands curled around his backpack straps and wheeling his skateboard back and forth underfoot. “Where are you headed?” he asks.

“Me?” Seungkwan tucks his keys into his back pocket. Vernon is framed in the fluorescent strip mall light, and in a miracle event, he’s looking at Seungkwan like he doesn’t totally hate him. Seungkwan says, “I live in K-Town. You’re in Pasadena?”

“Yeah.” Vernon nods, and kicks up his skateboard so he can take it in hand.

This is where they should say goodbye, but Seungkwan feels like he can’t just have let Vernon work for free because Jeongyeon wanted to torture him. “It’s kinda late, but. Can I get you dinner? It’s the least I can do.”

“Oh?” Vernon pulls a considering face that breaks out into a smile too soon. “I mean. Yeah, sure. I’d like that.”

They get on the southbound 206 bus towards Seungkwan’s apartment, settling into two empty seats toward the back. As soon as they’re on their way, his phone lights up with a text from his mom. _call in 10?_

 _I’m out_ , he responds, _sorry... catch up in the morning?_

 _out?_ she responds. _doing what?_ _with who?_

Seungkwan types, _omg i’ll tell you everything tomorrow! i’m safe & i love you!_

 _ok_ , she responds suspiciously. _tomorrow. I love you._

“Sorry,” Seungkwan says. “My mom.”

“No problem,” Vernon says with a swipe of his hand, looking a little soft.

Seungkwan does not talk to men, as a rule. He’s caught off guard by Vernon, who is very much the dude-est dude he’s voluntarily interacted with in years, and who Seungkwan assumed by sight alone that he would want to strangle within 15 minutes.

Instead, he finds that Vernon laughs at his jokes and nods very seriously even when Seungkwan is talking completely out of his own ass. Twice on the bus, Seungkwan finds himself with a self-deprecating joke on his tongue only to be intercepted by Vernon asking him an earnest question instead, the city lights whirring behind him through the window.

They land at Vernon’s favorite chicken and beer spot off Wilshire and settle into a dark booth in the corner of the restaurant. Neon-tinted light from the glowing beer signs paints the wood paneling around them where the low pendant light doesn’t reach. Their server comes by with a bottle of banana makgeolli and seafood jeon, and Vernon pours for both of them.

Seungkwan asks, “How old are you?”

“‘98,” Vernon replies, sliding the squat metal cup over to Seungkwan. He smiles amicably. “You?”

“What month?” Seungkwan eyes him suspiciously over his glass.

“February.” Vernon raises his own cup. With a goofy look on his face, he calls, “ _Geonbae,_ ayyy.”

Seungkwan snorts, and meets his cheers. Belatedly, he replies, “I’m ’98 too. January 16th. _I_ was born before the new year though, so.”

“That barely counts,” Vernon protests, but he’s grinning. His smile is a little too big for his face, and it makes Seungkwan laugh just looking at it.

Seungkwan talks over him loudly, propping his elbow on the table and waving a hand around. “ _Luckily_ , I’m merciful and generous so I won’t make you call me hyung.”

“Alright, wow,” Vernon intones, not sounding very grateful at all as he snags a piece of jeon from the shared plate and raises it to Seungkwan in a deep-fried cheers. Seungkwan delicately takes his own piece of jeon and chews on it with such obvious superiority that it makes Vernon bust out into his big funny laugh.

“I’ll call you hyung if you want,” Vernon says finally once it dies down, looking at Seungkwan curiously from behind his refilled cup. Seungkwan meets his eyes and promptly chokes on his food.

Once his windpipe clears, he coughs out, “That won’t be necessary.”

Vernon gives him that weird soft look again.

Seungkwan is proud of himself for waiting all the way until their chicken comes before he brings it up. But if they’re going to be friends, Seungkwan has to let it out.

“It’s really shocking and appalling that you don’t know the Wonder Girls.”

“Appalling,” Vernon repeats, half-laughing with it. He shakes his head and takes a bite of chicken. “I’ve heard of them. I like that song you played. It’s good.” He tries to sing a line, which he completely garbles in an excruciatingly charming way.

“If we’re going to keep hanging out,” Seungkwan says seriously. “This has to change dramatically.”

“Okay then,” Vernon replies agreeably, smile on his face. “Tell me everything I need to know.”

Seungkwan ignores, suppresses, and then completely attributes the swoop in his stomach to the rare opportunity presented to him. He is rarely encouraged, let alone tolerated, to talk at length about his one true expertise in this life. His face lights up, and he fills his lungs all the way to prepare for the monologue of a lifetime.

“Well, the Wonder Girls were formed by JYP Entertainment, and they debuted in February 2007 with the unparalleled and iconic hit single, _Irony_...”

Seungkwan is about five minutes deep into the dry run of his unscripted Wonder Girls podcast when Vernon breaks in to say, “Dang. They really paved the way, huh?”

Seungkwan is stunned silent for a moment. The grin grows inch by inch on Vernon’s face while Seungkwan regains his composure and nods sagely. “Absolutely. You’ve got it. Exactly.”

It’s pretty late when they’re done, and Seungkwan does have to be awake in 7 hours. Though it’s difficult to do, he tells Vernon he should get going.

Totally affable to that, Vernon says, “Ah, yeah. Wow, it’s later than I thought. You live close by, right?”

“Just a couple blocks away,” Seungkwan says.

“Sweet, I’ll walk you home.”

If things continue on this way, Seungkwan will never get even with Vernon. Then again, it does get weird around here this late, so he says, “Sure. Oh, you’ll like my building. It’s stupid.”

“You think I like stupid stuff?” Vernon grins. “Wow.”

Seungkwan just laughs as he starts leading the way toward his apartment. Vernon gracefully drops his skateboard and scoots along at Seungkwan’s pace. Nothing like this has ever, _ever_ happened to Seungkwan.

On the way, he chatters a bit nervously. “There’s a bus right outside my place, so you’ll be good to get home. Actually, I’ll wait with you for the bus. Then I’ll go in.”

“Sure,” Vernon says.

Seungkwan wants to say _this has been fun_. Or, like, _you’re unexpectedly nice for a boy_. But this is already getting kind of close to date territory, and Seungkwan doesn’t want to give the wrong impression, or seem weird. He doesn’t want this nice, handsome bro to think it has to be like that. He’s kind of excited to have a guy friend. So he just thanks Vernon profusely, sees him onto the bus, and fiddles his way into his spooky apartment.

He throws himself onto the bed with his clothes still on, wired but physically exhausted. He checks his phone. His mom sent him a goodnight text, so he replies with a million hearts that she’ll see in the morning. Then he sends a message to Dahyun. _So, i’m replacing you._

She replies while Seungkwan’s in the bathroom doing his skincare routine. _WHAT?_

_hung out with a boy today. a bro._

_like_ , she replies, _a guy?_

_yeah a homie. he drives a skateboard_

Dahyun replies in one second. _i don’t think so. you don’t speak to friend men._

 _it’s true!_ he taps out with one hand, peeling off his sheet mask and finally freeing himself to go to sleep. _it’s surprising to me too. but i think he might be a pretty cool person._

Then he crawls under the covers and falls asleep thinking about a big, goofy smile.


	2. Chapter 2

A couple days after Vernon hangs out with Seungkwan, he and Tobi meet up at the skate park and mess around until they get bored as the sun sets on another bright day. It’s technically autumn, inching close to October, but that has done nothing but change the hot sunlight from crisp yellow to sticky orange. The days still last forever, and Vernon’s still tired by dusk every evening.

In the weird zone between being done doing stuff and wanting to go home, they skate to the gelato place on Colorado. They always have a couple pretty good non-dairy choices for Vernon, and the AC is always on really high. They get kids scoops and loiter at one of the two cramped tables for as long as they can before they start getting looks from the employees.

They talk about music, and school, and the skate tricks they’re always inching infinitely closer to landing without ever actually landing. Vernon doesn’t mean to bring it up, but when they’re sitting hunched over the table, scraping the last little bits from the bottoms of their cups, it comes out on its own. “I like, went on a date.”

“No way?” Tobi says. “With who?”

“Uh,” Vernon says. “This boba barista.” He laughs nervously. “A guy.”

“Oh, sick,” Tobi says. The ease is clearly a little bit on purpose, but it’s not like it’s actually weird. They’ve known each other forever, and Vernon may talk easily enough about being, as he puts it while looking at his shoes, _bi or whatever_ , but he’s never really gone for a guy in real life before. Not for any real reason, but, it just, you know, hasn’t happened yet. Tobi asks, “What’s your type with guys?”

Vernon thinks about it for a second, then shrugs. “I don’t think I have one. It’s like, whatever guy I like.”

“You like this one?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Vernon says. Then he thinks about how nice Seungkwan looked in the dim light of the restaurant, with his cardigan and his soft-looking face. And then about how Seungkwan assumed he was white and then gave him diarrhea three times, yet they still went on a really good date. They laughed a lot, and he wants to go on more dates with Seungkwan. Comparatively, this was actually one of his most successful dates ever. So he says, “Yeah. Unexpected, but, yeah.”

“What’s he like?” Tobi asks. He looks up at Vernon with wide, listening eyes as he licks out the inside of his cup.

Vernon opens his mouth, but then finds the question hard to answer. It feels a little more vulnerable than he thought it would. He opens and closes his mouth a couple times, then laughs self-consciously, runs a hand through his hair, and says, “I don’t know, man.”

Tobi doesn’t try to get him to say anything else, and Vernon is thankful for that. He doesn’t know why he mentioned it at all, actually.

The gelato air chills them enough that stepping back out into the dense, warm dusk is a relief. They skate to the end of the street together and fist bump before taking off home in opposite directions.

For the rest of the ride home, as he speeds over familiar cracked sidewalks and abrupt curbs, Vernon thinks about what he would have said about Seungkwan if he could have said anything at all.

xxx

**the wonder girls**

**__** _dahyun, chaeyoung, sana, momo, seungkwan_

**seungkwan:** hiiiiiiiiiiiiii! i don’t think i’m gonna make it tonight... sorry!! don’t miss me too much AND DON’T!!! put spoilers in the gc or ELSE 😙 see you on the weekend bbs  
**dahyun:** wait. are you CANCELLING  
**momo:** omg  
**chaeyoung:** omg  
**sana:** omg  
**seungkwan:** this is the first bachelor night i’ve missed in two years?? i think i’m allowed to have a schedule conflict without this JUDGEMENT  
**dahyun:** EXACTLY 🔍 THAT’S SUS BEHAVIOR. 🚨 SUS ALERT 🚨  
**momo:** 🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨WEEWOO🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨  
**seungkwan:** TURN 🙅🏻♂️OFF🙅🏻♂️ THE ALERT  
**momo:** so uR saying ur not going to hang with ur hot bf???  
**chaeyoung:** 👁  
**sana:** 👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀  
**seungkwan:** first of all, have you heard of the fifth amendment?  
**dahyun:** HELL no i haven’t! and i won’t!!  
**seungkwan:** second of all, he’s NOT my boyfriend 🙄  
**seungkwan:** he’s a friend boy  
**dahyun:** i hate your ass! you hate laws until you want to use them to change the topic from your new hot bf  
**dahyun:** elle woods i’m objecting, bitch!! i can’t believe you’re abandoning us for a BOY  
**chaeyoung:** PSA i just found him on ig he’s like.. a guy. a dude. bro  
**seungkwan:** the constitution isn’t a law 😘 #futurejurisdoctor  
**dahyun:** SHUT!! UPppppPPPPPPP !!  
**sana:** omg send his profile c!!  
**chaeyoung:** instagram.com/choiboiii  
******momo:** LOL!  
**dahyun:** last week he was so-called “vernon” and this week, this MAN is better than watching Princess Jasmine and Sexy Alexa completely ignore Wonderbread Peter and fall in love with each other?  
**sana:** omg 😢 sad  
**chaeyoung:** lowkey is this like... misogynist actually? you hate us? you hate all women now?  
**seungkwan:** goodBYE ✌️

xxx

Seungkwan is fighting with the key to his apartment with Vernon hovering behind him when he realizes the gravity of his mistakes. To start, his weird apartment might be full of his weird Craigslist roommates and the only place in the apartment he can sit without fear of disease is on his own bed. And most pressingly, sometimes it takes him ten minutes, two phone calls, and a few tears for him to get his door open. But he has no choice now. He can’t go to a movie with Vernon smelling like burnt sugar.

“Sorry,” Seungkwan says, pained. He bends closer to the lock. “This always happens.”

“It’s all good,” Vernon says, kindly. Seungkwan takes a deep breath and pulls the key all the way out, and then puts it in slowly until he can feel the pins click. He holds his breath as he turns his wrist, and lets it all out in a sigh when the lock finally turns.

When Vernon texted him midway through his shift asking him if he was free to go see a movie, the truthful answer was no. Seungkwan watches _The Bachelor_ with his friends on Monday nights. They have a rotating snack and alcohol duty that they sign up for at the beginning of the season, entirely enforced by Seungkwan. So, not that he’d ever admit it, but the dragging he got in the group chat for cancelling was a tiny bit valid. But Vernon said that none of his friends wanted to see the new Makoto Shinkai movie with him. Plus, Seungkwan is still making up for his many sins.

It’s been about a week and a half since Vernon walked him home. Seungkwan has been thinking about him whatever the normal amount is that you might think about a friend who is different than all of the other friends you’ve ever made in your life. Vernon has stopped by the shop during his shifts twice and studied through to close once. And now they’re like, friends who text and go see movies together. It’s “chill”.

Seungkwan listens at the door for a moment, and says a quick prayer as he pushes it open. The only thing that greets them is the late afternoon light sneaking over the building in front of the window, making the apartment seem cuter than it was when he left it this morning. He breathes a sigh of relief and turns to Vernon with a bright smile.

“You can just kick your shoes off by the door, I’ll be quick,” Seungkwan instructs, ushering him into the apartment with a wave of his hand. Vernon shuffles in politely, toeing off his dusty Filas and lining them up neatly against the wall, which does something to Seungkwan that he tries to ignore. He distracts himself by looking busy, flitting into the main living area and setting his bag on one of the useless bar stools that don’t reach the right height for sitting at the counter. He whirls into the kitchen and pulls open the fridge. “Are you thirsty? Do you want green tea? La croix? Filtered water with ice? Don’t sit on the couch, I haven’t steam cleaned it. I don’t sit there.”

After a moment of consideration, he acquieses. “Hard surfaces are okay.”

Vernon laughs. Seungkwan looks over his shoulder to assure him that he’s serious, and finds Vernon looking back at him. Vernon says with a smile, “I’m good, thanks.” Then, leaning against the counter, he looks around. “It’s not that weird in here. I was picturing some freaky stuff.”

Seungkwan snags a bottled green tea stocked from his mom’s last Costco run and cracks the seal, grabbing one of his metal straws from the drying rack by the sink. He makes his way back onto Vernon’s side of the wall and observes the room while he sips.

“Not at _first_ ,” Seungkwan argues, gesturing around the room as he rants. “And then it’s like, why doesn’t the wifi work in this hallway? The balcony was nice until an angry pigeon couple made a nest out of my roommate’s dead plant pot and none of us were heartless enough to get rid of the eggs. The living room window faces directly out to someone’s bathroom and they like, don’t care. _Literally,_ it’s just full cheeks out sometimes. There are four different kinds of floor. My room is a pentagon.”

Vernon is laughing, and Seungkwan reaches over to shove his shoulder. “Stop laughing. My life is hard. Come to my five-sided room before you catch something out here. Are you sure you’re not thirsty? Here.”

Vernon does not stop laughing, but he does accept the bottle that Seungkwan pushes at him and takes a sip. Seungkwan ushers Vernon out of the common space and down the dead zone hallway with a hand on his shoulder. Vernon’s clothes are all soft and oversized and comfortable, and Seungkwan wants to notice less than he does. Seungkwan keeps being reminded of all the ways they couldn’t be more different. He doesn’t know what to do with the looming disappointment collecting in his chest.

“You can sit on my bed,” Seungkwan chirps, trying to sound normal and casual.

Seungkwan breezes over to his closet to avoid watching Vernon settle himself. Seungkwan has to get him out of here as soon as possible. He stares into his closet and mentally chastises himself for being stupid enough to put himself in a situation where Vernon can see him agonize over what to wear. It takes all of his restraint to grab for his favorite pink button down, a fresh undershirt, and a pair of dark wash jeans without overthinking it.

“I like your decorations,” Vernon comments. Seungkwan turns with his clothes clutched to his chest. Vernon is looking at the gallery wall of framed pictures and posters above his desk.

“Oh,” Seungkwan forces himself to smile, even though he feels suddenly very exposed. “Oh, thanks! Yeah. Those are my friends in the pictures. And my mom. My best friend, Dahyun, got me the Seoul Olympics poster for my birthday last year.”

Needlessly, Seungkwan adds, “It’s vintage.” It says 1988 right on it, stupid.

Vernon sips his green tea peacefully. He doesn’t look as out of place in Seungkwan’s prim room as Seungkwan had imagined he would. “It’s dope, for real. Do you like sports?”

It takes Seungkwan a moment to register the question. He’s not sure that anyone has asked him that before. He’s been visibly gay basically since infancy and people tend to assume. "I really love volleyball.“

“Nice,” Vernon says, nodding. “I just shoot hoops sometimes. But it would be cool to learn how to play something new.”

Seungkwan nods slowly. This is a thing that bros do. Sports together. He gets it. “Oh yeah, for sure,” Seungkwan says. He adds, “dude.”

Vernon beams. Seungkwan takes the opportunity to scramble out to the bathroom and over his shoulder calls, “Cool, I’m just going to change. BRB!”

Seungkwan changes at the speed of light and forces himself not to agonize over how much to scent himself. He smooths a light, fig-scented lotion over his arms and applies the matching hand cream. He looks at himself in the mirror and tucks and untucks the loose ends of his shirt three times before leaving one tucked and one untucked. He carefully applies a sheer tinted lip balm and makes his peace with what he’s working with.

_Friend boy_ , Seungkwan repeats to himself, looking at his reflection. Then, overcome with an inescapably bad feeling, he snaps a pic and sends it to the group chat.

_does this look okay??_

It only takes a second before the messages start rolling in, all of the girls together by now getting ready to watch their show. Dahyun says, _SEUNGKWAN SEXI!!!!!_ 😛 Sana says, _your skin is perfect sk!!_ Momo says, _💍._ Chaeyoung, last but not least, _DON’T ASK QUESTIONS U KNOW THE ANSWER TO, HOTTIE._

It’s hard, but Seungkwan lets himself trust them instead of the uncomfortable feeling. He takes one last look in the mirror and hurries back to collect Vernon before they miss their movie.

xxx

Vernon and Seungkwan see each other every few days for the next few weeks. Sometimes it’s just quick chats when Vernon comes to Half & Half while Seungkwan is at work. Sometimes he stays and helps close, and they get food and walk around. One day, Seungkwan texts Vernon to ask if he’d want to meet up on a break between classes to study. Of course Vernon replies right away, even though he’s in a lecture with a professor who is super weird about phones. Under the desk, he types, _chill just tell me where 2 meet u_.

Half an hour later, Vernon stands outside the building where Seungkwan’s class is still finishing up. He sits on a curb and rolls his skateboard back and forth under his feet, scrolls around on Instagram, then Seungkwan is standing over him. Vernon knows it’s Seungkwan because his jeans are perfectly cuffed and he’s visibly impatient as he taps a bright white sneaker on the sidewalk.

“Oh, hey,” Vernon says, shielding his face from the sun as he looks up.

“Hi, Vernon,” says Seungkwan. Vernon starts to stand up, shoves an arm through a backpack strap and kicks up his skateboard. He gives Seungkwan a goofy, self-conscious smile once they’re at eye-level, and Seungkwan throws one back that looks a lot more genuine, quieter and more warm than Seungkwan often is. He asks, “Were you waiting long? Sorry.”

“Nah,” says Vernon easily. “Just a couple minutes. Where we goin’?”

Seungkwan always walks super fast, like he’s in _The Devil Wears Prada_ or something, so he’s already leading the way. It almost makes Vernon laugh as he jogs a couple steps to catch up. He says, “I guess you’re showing me.”

“Thanks for meeting up,” Seungkwan says, glancing over and slightly up at Vernon as they walk to a part of the campus where Vernon hasn’t spent a lot of time.

“Of course,” Vernon says. What was he gonna do, not meet up with Seungkwan? Yeah right.

“I just hate that class,” Seungkwan huffs. He presses his index fingers to his temples and closes his eyes, all drama. “I needed to cleanse my vibes.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” Vernon smiles. “I’m your vibe guy.”

“You really are,” Seungkwan says earnestly. “I immediately feel less shitty.”

“What was wrong before?”

Seungkwan rolls his eyes and shakes his head slightly, like just thinking about it brings on a migraine. “Some professors just don’t understand workload. This is a two-credit class, and yet.”

“Yet,” Vernon agrees.

“Like, read the room,” Seungkwan emotes. “Some of us have things to do other than go over a hundred pages a week for a Research Skills class. Some of us have jobs. And moms to call. And like,” he glances over at Vernon, “Friends.”

He says _friends_ in a weird way, which makes Vernon smile, but Seungkwan has already looked away. Vernon says, “You call your mom a lot?” That’s cute.

“I do,” Seungkwan says. Then he says, “Almost every day,” in the quiet voice he sometimes gets, which is a totally different voice than his regular one. The regular one is really loud, higher-pitched, and combative yet sort of whiny. The quiet one is inside that one. Actually, maybe the quiet voice is the one that’s regular, and the loud one is made up. Weird. Then he’s loud again: “I used to call her every day until my stupid job extended their hours. Now all I do is work work work.”

Vernon wouldn’t want to go to school full time and also have to work, but Seungkwan is a lot more organized than Vernon is, and focused, and it seems like he sort of enjoys the pressure. He’s crazy smart, and really grown-up for his age. Vernon is still thinking of something encouraging to say when Seungkwan leads them into a small courtyard between two buildings.

It’s nice here on a too-hot day. This time of year the endless summer starts getting exhausting, so the slightly cool air, the shade of the buildings that overhang them, the privacy is really pleasant.

Seungkwan plops down at one of two round little tables, and Vernon follows as he says, “Ah, this is cool.” It’s cool to hang out with Seungkwan anywhere. It’s been especially nice to hang out with Seungkwan enough to start seeing the shady, private version of him too.

Seungkwan says, “This is where I spent all of last year. I was crazy. I was still living with my mom and commuting in, and I took seventeen credits, so I completely did not have a life.”

“Your mom lives like, far,” Vernon says.

“Trust me, I know.”

“Were you still taking the bus?”

Seungkwan shakes his head. “No, I saved up after high school and bought this horrible car. It was this little, like, hideous red thing. I had to jump it all the time. AC broken. Speakers blown out. It would have actually been better to take the bus, it’s not like I saved that much time. Then I sold it for the deposit on my current spooky apartment. So maybe that eight hundred dollars is gonna keep coming back to me, and everything I buy with it is always gonna haunt me.”

“Gotta use a different eight hundred dollars for your next deposit, yeah,” Vernon agrees.

“Right?” Seungkwan purses his lips a little. He’s starting to pull things out of his messenger bag, papers smooth like he’s got a filing cabinet in there. As for Vernon, no matter how hard he tries to break the habit, his backpack is always still full of loose papers, like the gently crushed math worksheet he pulls out now. He could probably cruise through it before his next class in an hour, if he wanted. Seungkwan looks prepared to study, too, from a short stack of papers with tiny text and no images.

But as Seungkwan pulls out a clear snap case of pencils and highlighters, Vernon wonders if they really came here to study. If so, lame. He thought they were just saying that as an excuse to hang out when they already have plans to meet up later.

Because Seungkwan does look serious, Vernon tries, but he’s antsy. He wishes he didn’t need such specific conditions to think clearly.

After a couple minutes, Seungkwan goes, “What’s wrong with you, fidgety?”

“Nothing, sorry,” Vernon says sheepishly. “Just can’t focus.”

“Why not?”

“Because I want to hang out with you,” Vernon admits without really meaning to. But it’s fine, he means it, and Seungkwan looks almost touched.

“Oh,” Seungkwan says again, in the quiet voice. “I thought you wanted to study.”

“You’re the one who invited me to study,” Vernon mutters. “I don’t care what we do.” He is a little embarrassed now. “Nevermind. I can study. Should we study? Let’s study.”

Seungkwan is making a face like he thinks Vernon is being very funny but thinks it would be rude to laugh. He says, “Oh, you want to study?”

Vernon bites back a smile too. “Okay, no, I don’t.”

“Chill,” Seungkwan says. He abruptly flops his packet of papers closed, hitting himself in the face while he does it. He sets it down on the table and pats it. He says, “Then let’s hang out.”

“Aw,” Vernon jokes. “Now there’s pressure, I don’t know.”

“You’re annoying,” Seungkwan whines.

Vernon laughs in his face.

xxx

Seungkwan hasn’t spent much time in Pasadena, just for marching band in high school and once when he and Dahyun saw Beyoncé at the Rose Bowl in 2018. But he’s here now, because he and Vernon texted non-stop over the weekend while Seungkwan was home with his mom. They chatted about school and work and music and friends, and then finally: skateboarding.

Feeling bold, Seungkwan had texted, flat on his back on his couch half-watching a drama and only half-serious, _wait, you should teach me how to skateboard_. _i wanna be cool like you!_

Vernon replied right away and said, _:) you’re already cool seungkwan_. And then, _but yeah i’m down_. _tmrw?_

Seungkwan lied a little bit when they decided where to meet; West Covina isn’t any closer to Pasadena than K-Town. But it’s already nice for Vernon to offer to teach him how to skateboard, and Seungkwan wants to see where Vernon lives. They are pretty good friends now, and he has heard Vernon talk about roaming the streets and _chilling_ enough that it’s made him curious.

Now, they’re at the skate park that Seungkwan recognizes from Vernon’s Instagram, and Seungkwan is making a fool of himself.

“Don’t you dare,” Seungkwan warns as he feels Vernon’s grip on his hands loosen, and immediately his legs twitch and send the board pitching forward. Seungkwan yelps, and Vernon just laughs, taking Seungkwan’s weight lightly in his palms as he readjusts his balance.

Vernon walks sideways, and Seungkwan rolls along with extreme trepidation, his eyes trained on his feet planted on the board in acute bodily fear. This is probably the worst idea he’s ever had. He’s sweating, bad. His white sneakers are getting scuffed, and he has no natural talent for this activity. The only thing good about this whole thing is the fear of breaking his bones is momentarily eclipsing the panic of Vernon touching him.

“You’re doing it,” Vernon lies cheerfully. He pries one of his hands out of Seungkwan’s grip and Seungkwan’s gaze darts up from the ground with abject terror. Vernon grins and puts his hand on Seungkwan’s waist, right above the waistband of his jeans, to guide him. Seungkwan looks down at it, and then up at Vernon who seems perfectly at ease. Seungkwan feels like his insides are boiling.

Vernon pushes him forward gently, tilting his head questioningly at Seungkwan’s expression. “You good?”

“Me?” Seungkwan laughs airily, holding his free hand out for balance. He looks at the slow-moving pavement, and then back up at Vernon with a strained smile. He’s very aware of the heat of Vernon’s palm, and the nervous dampness of his own skin, and the golden light bathing Vernon’s silhouette in poetics that have no place outside of Seungkwan’s stupid brain.

“Yeah, you,” Vernon says with a grin, and pokes him in the side.

And that’s all it takes for everything to go to hell. The tenuous peace of Seungkwan’s balance is too fragile to withstand the teasing and his feelings and staying upright all at once. He startles so bad that the board goes flying out from underneath him and he goes down hard with a yelp. Vernon tries to catch him, but Seungkwan takes both of them down. Seungkwan’s fall is broken by the cushion of his ass and Vernon’s is broken by Seungkwan.

Seungkwan lays on his back dazed for a moment, mortified. Vernon rolls off of him and Seungkwan pries open his eyes. He lifts his head to look at Vernon, who is looking back with the ghost of his grin from before the fall still on his face. Seungkwan meets his eyes and says, horrified, “Oh my god.”

Vernon breaks out into a big laugh, the sound rich and full and loud in the empty skate park at dusk. Seungkwan stares at him, but he doesn’t stop. Vernon shoves his shoulder good-naturedly and props himself up on his elbow, the frame of sunset light making him glow. “Hey, you’re a real skater now. You got the bruised ass badge of honor.”

Seungkwan does laugh at that. There’s an effervescent feeling that he can’t tamp down while Vernon is smiling at him. He covers his face and it fizzes up out of his chest in silly, uncontrollable giggles that build into a full belly laugh. Beside him, Vernon is laughing just as hard, falling back onto the ground with the force of it.

Seungkwan catches his breath eventually. He always has so much fun with Vernon. He thinks they make each other goofier. Vernon definitely makes him goofier. He jokes, “I have at least three times the ass of a normal person, so I think that means I’m three times the skater.”

Seungkwan means it to be kind of self-deprecating, but with Vernon’s eyes scanning Seungkwan’s prone body, Vernon agrees in a completely different tone. “Checks out to me.”

Um. Okay. Seungkwan feels his face heat and he scrambles to his feet. He dusts off his butt and looks closely at the new scuffs on his Keds instead of at Vernon.

Vernon’s phone makes a bright sound, and while he’s checking it, Seungkwan looks at him still spread out on the pavement. His legs are splayed and his hair is in disarray, bangs disheveled off of his forehead. More and more, Seungkwan looks at Vernon and wonders what the hell he is doing here with him at all. Seungkwan wonders what someone like Vernon is getting out of a friendship with someone like him.

“Tobi wants to come through,” Vernon says, peering at Seungkwan over the top of his phone. “I think he’s nearby.”

Seungkwan puts his hands on his hips and Vernon tilts his head. He’s not sure if Vernon is asking his permission or trying to get him to leave. He pulls his phone out of his front pocket to check the time. _5:44_. It’s somehow been almost three hours since Vernon met him at the train station, and a perfectly good time to pretend to have to go home. He doesn’t want to overstay his welcome, even though this is a public place. Seungkwan reluctantly acknowledges that he’s probably already pushing it from whining so much and narrowly avoiding concussing Vernon more than once.

“Oh, I can get going if you guys want to have, like... bro time. Not that I can’t bro. I am a boy too. Technically.” Seungkwan feels _shy_ , which is so weird. They’ve been spending all their free time together for weeks and he hasn’t felt shy around Vernon since he confronted him in the school library almost a month ago now. He crosses one ankle over the other. Lamely, he finishes, “I don’t want to intrude.”

“What? No way,” Vernon responds quickly. He pushes himself to a seat and runs a hand through his hair. Seungkwan averts his eyes. Seungkwan feels bad about confronting Vernon’s hotness when they’re supposed to be friends. “Tobi’s been wanting to meet you.”

Seungkwan thinks it is obviously very weird that Vernon’s best friend even knows who he is, let alone wants to meet him, but Vernon is acting like it’s normal. Seungkwan can’t stop himself from asking, “How does he know me?”

Vernon looks confused, the smile on his lips falling a bit. “From... me?”

Seungkwan bites back any number of retorts ranging from _obviously_ to a wordless hysteria. Instead, he laughs a big fake laugh, and says, “Oh, yeah. Duh.”

“So it’s okay, right?” Vernon asks, hopeful, his eyes huge. Seungkwan has dug himself into an impossibly deep hole. He plasters on a smile to cover up the horrendous feelings ballooning out of him, and says, “Of course.”

They pass the time by Vernon coaxing Seungkwan into sitting cross legged on the skateboard while Vernon pushes him around. Seungkwan doesn’t think that’s something bros do, though he has never had one so he wouldn’t know.

It doesn’t take Tobi long to roll up. Vernon mentioned that they both live close by. _Tobi_ , Vernon’s childhood best friend _,_ who knows about Seungkwan and wants to meet him. Seungkwan is still thinking obsessively about Vernon telling Tobi about him when Tobi zooms into the skatepark, laden with a plastic bag in hand and chunky yellow sunglasses balanced on his head.

“Heyyyy,” Tobi greets them, scooting to a halt a few feet away from them. Seungkwan stays on the board because he’s scared of looking stupid when he tries to get off.

Tobi’s wearing an entirely pink outfit; pink shorts with a pastel tie dye hoodie, with matching socks and sneakers. Seungkwan is extremely aware of how Vernon and Tobi are really, really cool, while Seungkwan is stuck in his striped t-shirt and jeans that he carefully chose specifically to look nice but not too nice. But now, in comparison, he looks like an elementary school kid on his way home from picture day. Lame on lame.

“Hansol, what’s good?” Tobi calls, approaching them with a big, toothy smile. Vernon squeezes Seungkwan’s shoulder where he was pushing him on the skateboard before lightly jogging up to give Tobi that handshake that bros do. Seungkwan prays he won’t be expected to do that. He’d really blow his cover.

“Hansol?” Seungkwan asks, scooting himself forward to meet them. Vernon offers a hand to pull him to his feet and Seungkwan accepts it with mild panic.

“Yeah,” Vernon says. “Vernon’s my middle name. Well, my mom’s maiden name, I guess. Either’s fine.”

Seungkwan remembers it now from Vernon’s debit card and he hopes to some higher power that Vernon didn’t tell Tobi about the poisoning. “Right.”

“Hi Seungkwan,” Tobi says cheerfully. He sticks out his hand. “I’m Tobi.”

Seungkwan accepts the normal non-bro handshake gratefully and replies, “Hi Tobi. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Same,” Tobi says, nodding. He’s got the same easy grace as Vernon, unbothered and steady. “Good to meet the legendary Seungkwan. Vernon’s been a ghost cause y’all are hanging out all the time.”

Seungkwan’s gaze darts over to check Vernon’s expression, and he just laughs. Seungkwan thinks he could be blushing, but it’s warm enough and they’ve been playing around for hours. Seungkwan laughs as heartily as he can and says, “Oh wow, sorry for stealing him.”

“All good. The Hansol is a renewable resource,” Tobi says, shrugging. He holds up the plastic bag, which is sweating with condensation. “Popsicles?”

The three of them sit on the lip of the half-pipe and eat popsicles together as the sun sets pink over Pasadena. Seungkwan feels like a completely different person than he usually is, his limbs loose and his mood silly. Tobi and Vernon are really easy to be around, and Seungkwan finds that he doesn’t have to work hard at all to keep the conversation and laughter flowing. He leans back against one of his palms and takes a bite out of his red popsicle.

“Tobi, can I say something creepy?” Seungkwan asks controversially.

Tobi replies, “Oh, absolutely.”

“I saw your high school rap videos on the internet.”

He already told Vernon he’d looked them up after Vernon mentioned their band, but admitting to cyber stalking a stranger even inadvertently is bold even for Seungkwan. Vernon laughs and then groans. Seungkwan beams back at him.

“Not that creepy. But you better not have anything bad to say about the Waterboys,” Tobi warns around a loud slurp. “I’ll confiscate your popsicle. We were Brockhampton before Brockhampton was Brockhampton.”

“Invented boy bands, pretty sure,” Vernon agrees with a serious nod. “Seungkwan said he liked our music. Right?”

“Vivian’s party was my favorite,” Seungkwan confirms. None of the songs had names, which Seungkwan thought was charming. “But did you guys _really_ freestyle all of them?”

“Bro,” Tobi says, offended.

“Dude,” Vernon says, equally offended.

Seungkwan holds up his hands and pushes out his lips into a pout. “All I’m saying is, I’ve heard a lot about these so-called freestyle skills...”

He hasn’t been able to goad Vernon into freestyling for him, but he hopes that Tobi’s pride in his craft will make him easier to influence.

Tobi shoves the rest of his popsicle into his mouth and wipes his hands on his pink shorts. He pulls out his phone and taps until a light snare beat with a major chord progression starts playing, thin in the open air. Full-mouthed, Tobi says, “Vernon, help the beat out.”

“Wait,” Seungkwan feigns surprise, putting a hand over his mouth. “Right now?”

“It’s a Waterboys reunion,” Tobi hoots and Vernon leans in and starts beat boxing over the top, his head bopping to the tempo. “HVC on the beat.“

Seungkwan looks between them, delighted. Vernon keeps meeting his eyes by accident and it makes Seungkwan feel like Vernon’s trying to impress him.

“Ay, ay, tears in my eyes when Mufasa died,” Tobi starts, drawing a line down his cheek with his index finger and pouting. Then he grins, and points at Seungkwan. “Milk tea boy when it’s hot outside.”

Vernon’s beat goes off for a moment as he lets out Seungkwan’s favorite delighted giggle, just a light _aha_ at the top of his register. Seungkwan says, his mouth slack, “Me?”

“Party like it’s ‘99,” Tobi continues, then winks at Vernon. “Shit me baby one more time.”

Seungkwan tips over yelling with his hands over his face before Tobi even finishes, his stomach twisting with second-hand embarrassment. Vernon smacks Tobi in the arm and shouts, “Dude,” but Tobi is already cackling with his head thrown back. Seungkwan should be mortified that Tobi knows.

He doesn’t feel embarrassed, though. In fact, he’s still laughing, harder than he can remember laughing in forever, young in a way that he’s not sure he’s ever been. Vernon tugs Seungkwan to his feet; his palm warm and sure, his smile competing with the simmer of the sun along the skyline.

_Milk tea boy with the blue jeans on_

_Yeah, you better dance to your new theme song_

Seungkwan bends his knees to throw his ass back as best he can, and doesn’t even think to be self-conscious about it. Vernon cheers him on, making stupid boy noises on the off beats. Tobi’s laughing between lines, on his feet and bopping with his full body. Seungkwan straightens up and when he looks, he sees Vernon looking right back at him.

_Come to Half & Half at two, he’ll mix you something smooth_

_Ain’t nobody nobody like you_

Seungkwan finally slips into the juvenile fantasy he’s been fighting off for weeks—where when it feels like Vernon is looking at him like he’s the only person on the planet, he really is. Where when Vernon makes Seungkwan feel special and interesting and funny, it’s because he believes that’s true.

He can’t help it; Seungkwan lets himself be pulled close, lets himself tip into Vernon’s side, lets Vernon take his weight. Tobi’s smiling at them like he approves. Tobi raises his eyebrows and asks, “So?”

“Milk tea boy approved.” The sincerity in his voice feels scary. But it turns out, there’s nothing to be scared of. Tobi just cheers and fist bumps Vernon. Nothing in his life has ever been this good and simple—but for a perfect sun-soaked moment, he lets himself have it.

Out of breath and damp across his forehead, whole body tired out from laughter, young as hell and definitely in over his head, Seungkwan beams. Vernon’s looking at him in the intent way that he’s starting to make a habit of.

The sun is setting. There’s a light breeze. Seungkwan’s face aches from smiling. Vernon gives him a happy squeeze around the shoulders. Seungkwan relaxes into the hold.

xxx

Seungkwan has three missed calls from his mom, so he shouldn’t be allowed to call himself a son anymore. He already doesn’t see enough of her, since he works through the weekend so often and needs a full day to make the trip worthwhile. She comes to see him sometimes, they eat and then she goes home, but she’s busy too, and he would be a monster if he forced his dignified mother, who deserves rest after so many challenging years, to sleep in a room with two different kinds of carpet.

Seungkwan missed the first call yesterday, when he was toiling at work. He missed the second call when he was dangerously oversleeping this morning after staying up too late finishing the homework he’s been letting stack up. He misses the third one in the evening, while he’s hanging out with Vernon after work.

They’re at the bar a couple doors down from Half & Half, wasting time at a table in the liminal space between finishing work and moving onto the next thing. It’s a shitty bar that’s too dark and smells like cigarettes, and they’ve been here a couple times in the last few weeks, when they don’t have enough time to go do something else but aren’t quite done hanging out yet.

Every time they see each other, they talk without a break. Seungkwan talks and Vernon listens intently, and Seungkwan makes jokes and Vernon always laughs, and Seungkwan sometimes says stuff that he regrets because he doesn’t know how to act, but somehow Vernon never acts like Seungkwan is being stupid. Vernon is such a good dude that Seungkwan can sometimes pretend that he doesn’t have a big nasty crush on him. He can almost forget how small he feels when he thinks about how unlikely it is that someone like Vernon would ever like someone like him.

Still, when it’s just them, they don’t stop laughing. Vernon is in a goofy mood tonight and keeps joking around, mocking him in a way Seungkwan would kill anyone else for doing. But Seungkwan was talking about the Wonder Girls again, so he probably deserved it. Vernon is reading their Wikipedia page off his phone in a know-it-all voice. He’s peeking over his screen and grinning with his giant mouth, saying, “I can’t figure out if you have this page memorized, or if you wrote it yourself.”

Seungkwan says, “I’m done with you!” He rolls his eyes, but he can feel the smile he’s holding back. He opens his phone to pretend to ignore Vernon.

One missed call, 10 minutes ago, _Eomonim_. His stomach drops. He has become the worst son in the world. His poor mother is planning his funeral.

He really has to call her back tonight. He’ll have to head home in a minute.

“You okay?” asks Vernon. He actually seems concerned, which is sweet.

“Yeah, it’s not a big deal,” Seungkwan says. He glances up at Vernon, who is looking at him intently. “I just missed a call from my mom.”

Vernon says, “Do you need to call her back?”

“When I get home,” Seungkwan says. “Not right now.”

“Won’t be too late?” Vernon double checks.

The thing is, it probably will be too late if he doesn’t leave right now. And he isn’t ready to go. He’s having too much fun; he feels all loose from laughing. So he says, “Would it be weird? If I just stepped outside for a second?”

“Nah, no problem,” Vernon says, smiling like he’s truly unbothered. He looks really nice tonight, in a big windbreaker, and his slightly wavy, mussed-up dark hair looks so good, and he keeps looking at Seungkwan with his eyes all big. “You should call her back,” he insists. “I’ll be here.”

“Okay. Thank you.” Seungkwan nods and shimmies out of the booth.

He slips out of the front door of the dark bar and out into the parking lot. The lights cast purple shadows over Seungkwan where he plops down on the curb. He stretches out his feet as the phone starts to ring.

“Hello,” his mom answers, like she’s a little surprised he called her at all.

“Hi, mama. I’m so sorry I missed your calls.”

“It’s okay. You’re a busy boy,” she says, and it doesn’t sound like she’s trying to hide her worry, at least.

“I know,” Seungkwan whines. “Too busy. I miss you.”

“Miss you all the time,” she says. “Why so busy this week? It’s not finals, right?”

“No, no. Midterms were last week. School is okay.”

“Are they making you work extra shifts? You have to tell them that school comes first.”

She probably doesn’t even know that she’s interrogating him. He says, “No, no, normal shifts.” He decides right then not to tell her about Vernon. “But we’ve been super busy, you know?”

“I see.” She sounds a little suspicious. “It’s good to stay occupied.”

Seungkwan agrees with a noncommittal noise. There’s a beat of silence. He racks his brain for something to tell her, but he’s been spending all his free time with Vernon. Ugh. He can’t just _lie._ He’ll tell her just a little bit.

She likes stories about customers, so he tells her, “Did I tell you about this customer who got poisoned at my job? Or, not poisoned, exactly,” he tries to backtrack as she makes worried sounds. “It’s this guy with a dairy allergy, and, wow, it’s not funny when I say it.”

“Is he okay?” she asks.

“Totally fine,” Seungkwan says awkwardly.

“That’s good.” She still sounds a little suspicious.

“We actually became friends,” Seungkwan says after a couple seconds of silence.

“You did?”

Seungkwan cringes at himself. He can’t shut up, and he can’t lie to his mom. He says, “We did. He’s cool. He knows Korean.”

“Really? Where is he from?”

“I… don’t know. I didn’t ask him.” They’ve kind of not talked about it at all, after bouncing back from Seungkwan’s misplaced racial stereotyping. “I will, and I’ll tell you.”

“What’s he like?” she asks.

Seungkwan doesn’t even have to think about it. “He’s super funny. Trendy, like, very cool. Nice. Nice heart. Good person.”

She makes a sound like she knows something. Seungkwan says, “No, no. Just a friend, mama.” He frantically looks back at the door to the bar to make sure Vernon hasn’t come out to check on him. “Just a friend. I don’t think he likes me.”

“Why wouldn’t he like you?” she says, directing her suspicion now to Vernon.

Seungkwan sighs. This conversation threatens to make him sad. “He’s straight, maybe?”

His mom hums thoughtfully. “If he is, don’t let him hurt you.”

Unfortunately, it’s probably too late for that. Seungkwan says, “Well, we’re just friends, but we’re having a lot of fun.” Then he adds, “He’s inside right now, so I should head out. But I won’t miss your calls anymore.”

“It’s okay if you do,” she says.

“It really isn’t,” Seungkwan says. He has to make sure she’s okay. Which, wow, he’s so selfish. “What’s been happening with you?”

“Nothing,” she says, laughing at him. “Nothing, nothing new. It’s okay. It’s good that you talk to me. That’s how it should be. I don’t need to tell you everything. You know, Jeonghan Yoon next door doesn’t ever call his mom.”

“That’s because Jeonghan Yoon doesn’t do anything he could tell his mom about,” Seungkwan laughs.

“Don’t tell me that,” she laughs back at him. “Now I have to lie to her.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Seungkwan says. Then he hums the Super Junior song.

“Alright,” his mom says, sick of him. “Go see, what’s his name?”

“Vernon. Or Hansol.”

“Hansol, that’s a nice name. What’s his family name?”

“Choi,” Seungkwan says, sweating for a million reasons. If he had looked at Vernon’s debit card the first day they’d met, wow. If he could give his younger self one piece of advice, it would be _read the fucking debit card_.

“Very nice name,” she says. “Tell him hello from me.”

“Okay,” Seungkwan whines. “I will.”

“Have fun. Bye honey.”

“Bye mama,” Seungkwan says. He feels it heavier all of a sudden, how in over his head he is. He puts his phone in his pocket and looks at the gray-purple sky for as long as it takes him to feel like a human again.

Back in the bar, Vernon is waiting patiently, of course. When Seungkwan walks in, he puts his phone away and says, “Oh, hey.”

Seungkwan slides into the booth and says, “Sorry about that.”

“No big,” Vernon insists. “You were gone for like three minutes. How’s your mom?” He takes a sip of his mostly-gone beer.

“She’s good, I think. She says hi.”

“To me?” Vernon grins.

“Yes, to you,” Seungkwan says. “God, she definitely thinks you’re my boyfriend.”

Vernon gives him an inscrutable look, and Seungkwan decides to throw himself under the same 206 bus he takes home from school. “Joke’s on her, I’ve never even kissed a boy.”

Seungkwan really thought that would be funny, before he said it. Mostly, he said it impulsively, to gauge Vernon’s reaction, and to ruin his own life, as usual. But as soon as it’s in the air, the vibe breaks. Seungkwan is figuring out what slapstick to do to fix it when Vernon says, weirdly sincerely, “I get that.”

“You do?” Seungkwan says.

“Um, yeah. I haven’t kissed a boy either.”

“You would want to?” Seungkwan chokes.

“Well, yeah,” Vernon says, a little pointedly. “Hopefully.”

“Cool,” Seungkwan says, but he feels kind of sick all of a sudden.

Vernon goes on. “But, I get that it’s, like, harder. With guys. Than it would be with girls. Like, uh,” oh, he’s struggling, and it’s the cutest thing in the world, “for me, I like both, but it’s much more complicated with guys. I think. I guess I don’t totally know yet. I don’t know how it is for you.”

Seungkwan nods. He was almost hoping Vernon was straight, even though he has been starting to feel much less sure about that. It would be nice, because then Vernon could be unattainable for a reason that wasn’t Seungkwan’s fault. If Vernon is queer, then Seungkwan is just not good enough. He says, “Yeah. It’s um. Complicated.”

Then he looks up from his napkin-shredding hands and up at Vernon, who is, as he often is, already looking at Seungkwan. And Seungkwan, feeling a lot of excitement and worry and dread and fear and affection, looks back at him. It seems like a long time that they are looking at each other. It feels like they are very close.

Finally, Seungkwan can’t take it anymore, so he fakes a cough and shouts, “Oh my god, it’s dusty in here.”

It’s enough to break the spell. They go right back to where they left off, picking up a conversation that Seungkwan is starting to let himself believe won’t ever end.

xxx

**seungkwan:** Hiiiiiiii <3 can i bring a plus one to your halloween party?  
**dahyun:** if it’s hot boy friend friend boy  
**dahyun:** yes  
**seungkwan:** thaaaaaaanks you’re the best love ya!

**seungkwan:** Hiiiiiiii, do you have Halloween plans?  
**vernon:** yo :) not reaaaaaalllyyyy why?  
**seungkwan:** do you want to come to my insane best friend’s halloween party? it’ll be fun i promise!  
**vernon:** yes!!  
**seungkwan** : yay!

**seungkwan:** okay actually can you cancel the party  
**dahyun:** no  
**seungkwan** : homophobe

xxx

Seungkwan feels this sense of catastrophe often, but never as acute as this moment, as he peers out at the rag tag group of hooligans assembled in Dahyun’s familial house. He doesn’t know why so many boring people he hates are here already, but it’s too late to do anything about it. And he clearly should have gone with Dahyun to Savers to get the decorations; there’s Halloween and then there’s _this_ dusty, macabre horror show that only Dahyun would find hilarious. There are three pumpkins outside the front door that look like they’re barfing up their guts and Seungkwan _just barely_ stopped Dahyun from smearing ketchup on the walls as fake blood.

But he can’t blame everything on Dahyun. He’s also regretting everything about the costume he meticulously curated over the last two months. A younger Seungkwan thought that Trixie Tang, Asian-American queen and icon, would be his most inspired Halloween costume yet. But now that he’s sweating in a white leather skirt with a full face of makeup and a wig on, the abject terror of what he’s done sets in. As an empowered person, Seungkwan’s personal narrative wants to say that he doesn’t care what Vernon thinks about Seungkwan being the kind of gay person who goes full drag on Halloween. However, there is a bigger part of him, the part that houses his giant, sickening, and increasingly hopeless crush on Vernon, that cares so much about accidentally crossing the line that will finally make him _too much_.

Seungkwan swallows his nausea and tears his eyes away from where Nayeon as Misty and Dahyun in her massive Psyduck costume are pouring themselves some truly rancid looking beverages. He unlocks his phone to the selfie camera to check his makeup again.

“SK, I’m not saying this to be a bitch,” Chaeyoung says from her place on the couch. She tugs the red latex away from her crotch and flips her blonde Britney wig. “But if you’re checking yourself out in your selfie camera again, I’m going to kill you.”

Seungkwan’s head snaps up and he locks his phone before Momo, who is standing next to him by the door in an Adidas tracksuit, can rat him out. He self-consciously tucks a lock of his long, black wig behind his ear and glares at Chaeyoung. “I’m _not_.”

From across the room, Dahyun croaks, “ _Psyduck!_ ” After three hours of this, Seungkwan can now interpret this as her calling him a liar. He knows without a doubt that she’s not going to be any help in turning this party into something that will make Vernon think Seungkwan is anything but an absolute freak show, and for that, he hates her.

He ignores her and turns his attention to adjusting the lights, straightening the hodgepodge bar table, and losing his goddamn mind. To the room, he announces, “ _Someone_ tell me that we didn’t forget to get thematic cocktail napkins. Please.”

Nayeon, helpfully, quips, “There are Chipotle napkins!”

Seungkwan, for a brief and dizzying moment, fantasizes about texting Vernon to cancel, but the damage is done. Vernon texted that he was on his way 20 minutes ago. Instead of lamenting his many idiotic mistakes, Seungkwan hones in on Mark, an old friend from high school who they used to keep around because of his alcohol connections and sort of grew fond of along the way, like a boxcar puppy or something. He goes to talk to him in the living room, but just then there’s a knock on the door, and Seungkwan just _knows_ it’s Vernon.

“Psyduck!” shouts Dahyun, but Seungkwan whips around and yells, “I’ve got it!”

It is Vernon, of course. Seungkwan has developed a sense, which currently feels super similar to being killed from the inside. Vernon is shifting from foot to foot and looking kind of nervous, but as soon as Seungkwan opens the door, his face lights right up. “Hi, Seungkwan,” he says super sincerely. Then he does his giant grin, which usually settles Seungkwan’s restless soul, but this time it’s not so comforting, because he is wearing some makeup that makes him look crazy.

Seungkwan is a good host, so he doesn’t stare. He says, “Vernon, you made it!” and invites him in without attempting to touch him in any way. Then, once they get inside, he stares. He realizes that Vernon has attempted to draw glasses on his face using black and white face paint. It looks really bad, but now that he gets it, it’s hilarious. Still standing in the entryway, Seungkwan says, “Are you Waldo?”

Vernon says, “Yeah, haha. Who are you?”

“Trixie Tang,” Seungkwan says in his very good Trixie Tang voice, tossing his hair. “Why did you draw the glasses on?”

“Oh,” Vernon says, biting back a smile like he understands that he’s the second funniest person in the world completely by accident. “I um, didn’t have any non-sunglasses at home. But my little sister had some Halloween makeup, so I just used that.”

Seungkwan can’t help but cough out a little laugh. Vernon is so great, but that’s dumb. Vernon, as usual, laughs with him. Then he looks at Seungkwan kind of closely and says, “Well, _your_ makeup looks really nice.”

Seungkwan’s heart twists up at the eye contact in a way that he can not acknowledge is happening this early into his party, so he says, “Wow, I’m so rude, let’s get drinks.”

“Cool,” Vernon says, and follows Seungkwan into the brightly lit kitchen.

It’s a fucking wreck in here. Dahyun just pulled stuff out of cabinets and nobody else has brought anything. The sparse, ugly offerings seem so cosmically hilarious in this moment that Seungkwan could laugh at God as he gestures to the counter. “Um, ginger ale,” he says at the mostly empty, warm 2-liter. “Some Calpico,” he says at the two loose bottles. “The bottom of this old soju. Or some ‘Red Drink.’ There was Tito’s, but I think Big Matthew was making people do body shots with it a minute ago.”

“His name is Big Matthew?” Vernon laughs. “And he’s doing body shots at 8pm?”

Seungkwan leans in with wide eyes. “I know. The man is insane. Very sweet, very stupid, very horny. So no Tito’s.”

“Then, uh, what’s the ‘Red Drink’? It’s like punch?”

“No,” Seungkwan says gravely. “It’s not.”

Nonplussed, Vernon says, “Then I’m probly good.”

Seungkwan tries to save face and be a good host to Vernon specifically, “Well, I’m making myself a ‘Red Drink.’ You should let me make you one too.”

“Okay,” Vernon concedes. “Wait, is there um, dairy in it?”

“No. There definitely isn’t.” Seungkwan clenches his fists under the counter. “It would have curdled.”

“Then uh, sure. Why not.”

Seungkwan busies himself with collecting two red solo cups from where they are strewn about the counter, peering into them before deciding to be safe and rinse them quickly in the sink. Dahyun’s ancient fridge groans so loudly when Seungkwan tries to get it to dispense ice that it makes Vernon laugh behind him. As he ladles the ungodly red liquid into their cups, he’s not sure this could be going worse.

He presses the cup into Vernon’s hand and lifts his own with a smile he hopes looks easy and breezy, rather than as pained as it feels. “Cheers!”

Vernon’s red solo cup makes a faint, dead plastic noise as it clicks against his. He grins back at Seungkwan and takes a sip. Vernon, a very considerate person, tries to repress his grimace even though he does not wholly succeed. Once Seungkwan takes his own sip, he doesn’t blame Vernon in the slightest. Whatever Dahyun put in there is undoubtedly sinister.

Seungkwan coughs, and then he laughs, the sound sounding borderline hysterical even to his ears. “Oh my god. This is so bad.”

Vernon’s answering laugh isn’t stressed, it’s just goofy like normal and the sound brings a real smile to Seungkwan’s face.

Encouraged, Vernon brings the cup close to his nose and wafts the scent towards himself with his free hand. He scrunches his face up into a cute expression of mock concentration that is so bad for Seungkwan’s health. “I’m getting notes of... like, Red Dye 40 and high fructose corn syrup. And then something weird. Ketchup?”

Seungkwan laughs, louder than he intended. “Oh god, stop. I’m sorry. Dahyun is insane. I shouldn’t have let her mix anything.”

“It’s all good. It’s not that bad once you get used to it,” Vernon says with a grin. Then, as it does, his face goes all sincere. “Hey, thanks again for inviting me.”

Seungkwan’s heart starts beating very fast and he tugs on the hem of his skirt for an excuse to wipe off his palm. He responds, “Well, thank you for coming.”

Vernon smiles at him and Seungkwan smiles back. He’s not ready to face the rest of the party just yet, even though the kitchen vibes are not ideal. It’s never stressful when it’s just them.

It’s just then that his hiding spot turns suddenly into a trap. His friends all pour into the kitchen like a pack of evil birds, Dahyun closing them in with the girth of her Psybooty.

Seungkwan raises his eyes to the ceiling in prayer and mutters under his breath, “Here comes the goon squad.”

“What was that, Seungkwan?” Chaeyoung asks sweetly, sidling up to him. She pinches his cheek and he bats her away sharply.

“I said, here come my beautiful friends,” Seungkwan responds, just as saccharine. He’s starting to feel hot again, inching towards a complete meltdown.

Sana and Momo bounce in next to Vernon and they are staring at him with their eyes too wide to be casual. Seungkwan tries to smile at them with enough aggression that they _chill out,_ but then he catches Vernon looking at him and Seungkwan has to drop it. Dahyun waddles in, but keeps her distance enough so that the door is still blocked. He’s grateful that at least she’s still doing the Psyduck bit, so she can’t say anything embarrassing. The horrendously bright white tungsten kitchen light casts an uncanny shine on the room.

Then, Dahyun says, “So you’re the one Seungkwan poisoned?” and Seungkwan finally dies. Every cell of his body withers at once along with their many years of friendship. All dead.

Vernon laughs nervously. “He didn’t technically poison me. It’s um, an allergic reaction. Poison is like, to everyone, I think?” Vernon shrugs. “You’re Dahyun, right? The pumpkins outside are awesome. Thanks for having me over.”

Dahyun, approvingly, “ _Psy_ duck.”

Seungkwan, from beyond the grave, spots the light switch to the kitchen just behind Momo, and briefly contemplates whether the plunge into darkness would cause enough chaos to manufacture an escape route. Maybe if he tipped over the ‘Red Drink’ while everyone was confused.

Vernon turns to the rest of the girls and says with a wave, “Nice to meet you guys, too. What’re your names?”

Seungkwan’s heart clenches up more and more as the girls tell Vernon their names one by one, and Vernon repeats their names back at them to confirm with a sweet little nod. It’s not fair that Vernon can just _be_ like this. He can’t just be _perfect_ and hanging out with Seungkwan and his freaky friends at his awful party and acting like he’s just happy to be here.

But he is like this. At the end of the go-around, Vernon politely says, “Oh, I’m Vernon. Or Hansol.”

Sana, who Seungkwan once thought of as an angel on earth, takes a sudden fall from grace. Innocently, she chirps, “We know.”

Seungkwan only restrains himself from lunging for the ‘Red Drink’ as an emergency escape because Dahyun finally decides he’s suffered enough and backs awkwardly back into the living room. Seungkwan jumps into the conversation without waiting for an opening, his voice stuck in his upper register. “Okay, wow, the party’s out there!”

It’s almost like Vernon didn’t realize they were trapped in the first place. He’s still talking to the girls, not making a fool of himself at all. Which is to be expected, but still makes Seungkwan a weird mix of proud and devastated.

In the living room, Vernon starts trying to guess everyone’s costumes. To Dahyun, he says, “I don’t know, it might be too hard,” and Dahyun says, “Psyduck,” like she understands his plight. Then Vernon turns to Momo and Sana and says, “Actually, I don’t know who you guys are at all.”

As if they’ve practiced, Momo and Sana, in their matching Adidas track suits, drop into their Eastern European Squatting Guy pose in perfect unison. Vernon laughs because it’s funny, though Seungkwan doesn’t think he actually gets it. But there’s nothing in the world more charming than Vernon vacantly going, “Cool, so cool,” at Seungkwan’s best friends.

Seungkwan has to look away, and in the process he sees Big Matthew leaning on a table, pushing his titties out and hitting on Josh, who is ac-tu-al-ly dressed like a priest. Poor Big Matthew, he’s been led on for so long. Though, it’s kind of Matthew’s own fault for continuing to chase someone without a brain. God, Seungkwan _hates_ Josh. Like, we get it, you’re unbelievably hot. Big deal. Can you read?

Seungkwan didn’t know that Josh had gotten here already. He wants to turn to Dahyun and say something like _Ew, fucking Josh is here,_ but he’s not trying to be a bitch around Vernon, who is chill with everyone in a way that is occasionally kind of inspiring.

But the sound of Josh’s empty laugh pushes him over the edge. Someone has to say it. “Ew, fucking Josh is here.”

“Do we not like him?” Vernon asks.

“Psyduck,” Psyduck says soberly. Vernon nods wisely.

“I can’t believe he’s dressed as a priest,” Seungkwan says. “He’s _gay_.”

“He’s gay?” asks this buff dude who just showed up with a 12 pack of light beer.

“Who even are you?” Seungkwan says. When he’s this stressed out, Seungkwan can’t help but be mean. “And a word of advice? His brain is powered by Siri, and he’s not even slutty, so you probably shouldn’t try it with him.”

“Oh,” says the buff dude. “No offense, but I’m straight.”

“Good for you, Mr. Lambda Phi Epsilon,” Seungkwan snaps, rolling his eyes.

“Uh, it’s Jay,” corrects the off-brand miniature Big Matthew. Seungkwan simply scoffs and pretends he did not hear. Then he accidentally makes eye contact with Vernon and paints on the fakest, sweatiest smile that he’s got.

To Vernon, Seungkwan says, “Let’s go hide before I have to talk to Josh.”

“Sounds good,” Vernon says amicably.

Just then, an attempt is made on Seungkwan’s life. Something white flies through the air and heads straight towards Seungkwan’s face. His incredibly acute fight insticts kick in and he strikes out at it with a strangled yell. Vernon’s hands come to his waist from behind to steady him as Seungkwan’s weight goes flying backwards with the force of his hit.

Seungkwan twists around to figure out what hell creature tried to kill him and more importantly, embarrass him in front of his friends. He doesn’t have to look far before he spots Psyduck, shaking with Dahyun’s signature maniacal cackle. “Psyduck, you horrible mallard, what the hell was that?”

Psyduck lifts one flat wing to the ceiling and Seungkwan looks up to see a little ghost on a string tied to the ceiling fan. Seungkwan’s mouth drops open and he turns to roll his eyes where Vernon can see.

“I hate her,” Seungkwan says firmly. He presses a palm to his chest to feel where his pulse is still racing. “I almost died.”

“You did,” Vernon laughs. He pats Seungkwan on the back comfortingly. “Oh man, we should have gone to Halloween Horror Nights. Do you think it’ll still be open next week?”

Seungkwan doesn’t want to think it, but the thought comes unbidden: that sounds suspiciously date-y.

“I can’t,” Seungkwan admits. He picks a piece of lint off of his lavender turtleneck. “I hit.”

“Of course you do,” Vernon replies, and he’s looking at Seungkwan again. Like, what is _that_ supposed to mean?

“Well,” Vernon says, when Seungkwan doesn’t say anything because his brain is overheating. “I’m a pacifist. So maybe it’ll balance out.”

“You’re a _pacifist_ ,” Seungkwan echoes hollowly, looking at Vernon’s stupid, stupid Halloween makeup and his lovely, straight nose, and his big smile that he shares with Seungkwan _all_ the time. If it were anyone else, Seungkwan would say that anyone with that look on their face thinks he is cute, but it is not anyone else. It is Vernon, who grows more perfect every day, and who has contentedly endured almost 45 minutes of this insane party even though Seungkwan is sure he had his choice of where to go tonight.

Irrationally, Seungkwan gets scared that Vernon is only here because he’s too nice to turn him down. How can Seungkwan be sure that Vernon hasn’t only kept talking to Seungkwan this whole time because he hasn’t figured out how to get him to stop talking long enough to let him down easy? But even as the fear fills his chest, he knows it’s not that. His phone is full of Vernon’s messages inviting him to dinner, asking when he works, wondering about how his mom is doing, telling him stories about his day.

Vernon likes Seungkwan, obviously. But Seungkwan _likes_ Vernon. He likes Vernon so much that at this point, the thought of Vernon not liking him in the same way makes him want to cry the three different base products and his full pastel purple eye right off. He wants so badly for Vernon asking him to go to Halloween Horror Nights to be as date-y as it sounds and for the look on Vernon’s face to really mean that he thinks Seungkwan is cute. He wants to go to some cringey haunted house and hold onto Vernon’s arm and scream and hide his face in Vernon’s shoulder and for other people to see them together and go _awwwww_. It’s sick.

God, he might actually cry. This is the worst night of Seungkwan’s life. He doesn’t know how he let himself get this far in, how he let himself hope for something so impractical. He wishes he had faked his death and gone back to Jeju before any of this could have happened. He has to talk to the Wonder Girls absolutely right now.

But he can’t abandon Vernon, so he leads him to the couch where most of the Evil Girls are sitting. The Evil Girls are like the bad version of the Wonder Girls, in that there are five of them, four of whom are girls and one of whom is currently sitting on his hands and pursing his lips at Big Matthew. The main reason Seungkwan knows them at all is that perfect, insane Dahyun is dating Evil Girl Nayeon, so the friend groups have merged more than Seungkwan would technically like.

Right now, Mina is wearing mouse ears and half-listening to 12-pack guy “Jay” as he desperately tries to get her to pay attention to him. Jeongyeon is wearing cat ears and looking at her phone. She didn’t even put on a tail, which is disgraceful when Seungkwan is like, _in drag_ right now, but that’s Evil Girls for you. Tzuyu is a half-assed cute witch. Nayeon is obviously Misty, but even she isn’t trying to interact with Psyduck, because Psyduck is being incorrigible on purpose.

They sit down on the couch, Seungkwan very stiffly and Vernon not stiffly at all. Seungkwan says, “Meet some more of my friends.”

“Hi,” Mina says blankly, and the 12-pack guy makes a distressed face at losing her attention so easily.

“I know you,” Jeongyeon says. “You do my work at night.”

“Hi, Jeongyeon,” Vernon says with a little wave.

Seungkwan decides this will have to be good enough, and says, “You all chat. I have to pee. It might take a minute because of my costume.”

“Okay,” Vernon says, smiling up at him. He is too good; Seungkwan has no time to spare. He gathers the Wonder Girls and tells them to meet him in Dahyun’s room.

Gathered by her bed a minute later, Sana and Momo look a bit miffed. Psyduck looks like Psyduck. Chaeyoung, dressed in red vinyl as Britney Spears, is the only person here who appears to care that Seungkwan is dying right in front of their eyes. Scoldingly, Dahyun says, “Psyduck.”

“It’s so bad out there,” he says. “Please shut down the party, or at least help me figure out how to get Vernon to _leave._ ”

Sana holds up her hands. “Wait, you want him to leave? But you’re killing it?”

“Stop.”

“No, you are,” Sana goes on seriously. “This dude like, really likes you.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Seungkwan says. Now that he isn’t trying to keep the party from falling apart, he’s feeling really tired and stupid. “Him?” He shakes his head. “No. He doesn’t like me.” Oh god, he’s so sad. That’s actually the whole thing. Woof. He needs to lie down.

“That’s your _boyfriend_ , Seungkwan,” says Chaeyoung. “He’s here as your date. He’s waiting out there for you. He’s gonna be exactly where you left him and you know it.”

“Yeah,” Seungkwan says quietly. “I guess.”

“Why do you want to believe it isn’t like that?” Chaeyoung says.

“Because,” Seungkwan says. “Because. I’m me.”

“Oh my god,” Momo says. “Babe.”

“Just saying.” Seungkwan thinks he’s done, but he can’t ever shut up. “He’s out of my league. I know it. I shouldn’t have invited him here to get ogled like I thought we were dating and make everything weird forever. Like, what was I thinking? Who am I? Oh my _god_.”

“Stop,” Dahyun begs, finally deigning to pull off her stupid Psyduck head. “Seungkwan, what the fuck?”

Seungkwan makes a horrible face at her.

“You are so sexy, and so cool, and so smart, and so fucking _fun-nnnny._ If you ever say anyone is out of your league again I’m gonna kick your ass, first of all. Also, he likes you. I’ve been observing him liking you for the past hour. You’ve fucking,” and she does a weird lasso motion that doesn’t quite translate in her Psyduck costume, “Got him.” She goes to sit next to Seungkwan on the edge of her bed and says, “Honestly, the only thing that sucks about it is that I never took you for a _stupid boy_.” She hisses the last two words, like a curse.

“I’m not a stupid boy,” Seungkwan whines.

“You’re being a stupid boy right now.” She seems like she actually might be mad at him.

Seungkwan groans. He came here for pity. “I am not.”

Dahyun is acting like she’s furious. “You need to go back out there, and you need to talk to that other stupid boy before someone else does.”

Seungkwan isn’t worried about that. None of the Evil Girls would dare. But then he realizes. “You’re right,” he says. “He’s probably out there falling in love with Josh right now.”

“He isn’t, but okay,” Dahyun says. “Whatever gets you back out there.”

Seungkwan leaves them in the room to mock him once he’s left, and he swoops down the hallway to rescue Vernon. As anticipated, Vernon is sitting exactly where Seungkwan left him. He smiles placidly at Seungkwan as he makes his way closer.

“Hi,” Vernon greets him. “Jeongyeon is showing me this cat game.”

“Is it the one where you collect them?” Seungkwan inquires distractedly, still scanning the scene to double check that Vernon had not fallen in love with anyone while Seungkwan was losing his mind.

Vernon shakes his head and shows him the screen. “No, you stack them,” he says. Then, he catches sight of Seungkwan’s expression and must see something of concern. There are _plenty_ of concerns to see. He asks, quietly like it’s just between them, “Hey, you okay?”

“Yeah, dude, you’re super red,” Jeongyeon comments from her place slouched halfway down the couch, raising her eyebrows.

Vernon tucks his phone into the pocket of his jeans, and reaches out a hand. Seungkwan stares at it for a moment and then he grabs it. Vernon tugs himself to his feet with a concerned smile. “Do you wanna go outside for a second? I could use a break, too.”

Seungkwan’s mouth goes dry. Then, he swallows and nods. “Okay, yeah. We can sit in the backyard.”

Seungkwan is so lost that he almost forgets the way to the door. He’s totally overwhelmed. His party is ruined, he’s sweaty, and Vernon probably hates him for being such a persistent, scattered, dramatic, pink, sweaty mess.

But, once they make their way to the little walled-in patch of gravel and dead grass and crummy chairs, the ground starts to return under Seungkwan’s feet. The air is cooler, and there are only two other people out here. As usual, it’s a little easier when it’s just them.

Seungkwan leads them to the ancient patio furniture. He has a thought to try and dust it off so it doesn’t mark up his skirt, but the fight has gone out of him. He sits down with a sigh and Vernon pulls up a chair next to him.

“I’m sorry the party is such a mess,” Seungkwan says, painfully. He smooths down his skirt over his thighs and crosses his feet at the ankle.

“Huh?” Vernon says, laughing a little. “No way. Your friends are dope.”

A little smile creeps it’s way onto Seungkwan’s face. “They’re _crazy_.”

“They’re hilarious,” Vernon says happily. “I get why you and Dahyun are best friends. It’s cool to finally meet everybody.”

“They are funny,” Seungkwan has to agree.

“I mean,” Vernon says. “Of course your friends are as cool as you are.”

Vernon is so nice. Seungkwan has felt the entire range of human emotion in the last hour, but maybe he’s finally coming to acceptance. The evening finally has a slight pleasant chill. And Seungkwan has been hanging out in this backyard for almost ten years, and it’s nice to sit alone with Vernon, despite everything.

“I’m glad I poisoned you so we can be friends now,” he says into the quiet.

He really means it. Even though it hurts his feelings a lot that Vernon probably doesn’t like him back, it’s worth it to have a person like Vernon in his life. He feels better, making peace with it.

The quiet stretches on for long enough that Seungkwan turns his head to check on Vernon, and he finds Vernon’s usually relaxed posture tense through his shoulders, and a weird look on his face. Seungkwan tenses up in response, trying to figure out what he said wrong.

Vernon seems to come back to himself, and huffs out an awkward, humorless laugh. His eyes dart to the other people in the yard, and then to the house. He says, “Haha. Yeah.”

Seungkwan feels very helpless. Does Vernon not actually want to be his friend? Has Seungkwan actually tricked him into this whole friendship? He doesn’t want to have been right all along.

“Um, I’m sorry,” Seungkwan says before he can stop himself.

“Ah, for what? You’re good,” Vernon says. He isn’t looking at Seungkwan. He coughs into a hand and says, “I better head home. It’s um.” Seungkwan sees him try to say _late_ , but it’s like 10pm. “Time.”

“Yeah,” Seungkwan says completely dryly. “Okay.”

Vernon gets up right then, and Seungkwan looks up at him from his seat. Then, Seungkwan gets up too, because he doesn’t know what else to do. He doesn’t understand how they got here. “I’ll walk you out?”

“It’s all good,” Vernon says quickly. He shoves his hands in his pockets and looks at the door again. “I got it. Um. I’ll see you.”

“Text when you get home safe?” Seungkwan says, pathetic. Vernon nods.

Then, he leaves. Seungkwan watches him go. He swallows down the lump in his throat, but he knows he’s fighting a losing battle. It sucks always being right.

xxx

When Vernon gets home, after driving his mom’s borrowed car the whole way back in silence, he wants to get straight in bed. He doesn’t know where he went wrong. Even at the party, though Seungkwan had been in the world’s weirdest mood, Vernon thought it was going well.

On his way to his room, he passes through the kitchen, where Allison is perched at the table, looking at her phone and eating chocolate from a plastic jack-o-lantern. She’s dressed as the lo-fi hip hop beats to study/chill to girl, with her headphones down around her neck.

Vernon plops down next to her and opens a bag of skittles.

“Excuse me?” she says without looking up from her phone. “That’s mine. I earned that.”

Vernon rubs at where the edge of his makeup has started flaking off. He feels so dumb. He ignores her and asks, “Can I borrow one of your makeup wipes?”

She looks up at that, and fixes him with a scrutinizing look. “You really went out like that.”

“Allie, for real,” Vernon groans, and gives up on keeping his head up. He brings his forehead to the table. He takes refuge in the darkness, hoping some of the sadness will leach out of his brain and into the wood of the table. “I want to eat chocolate.”

“You can’t,” she says matter-of-factly, even through an audibly full mouth. “You’ll poop.”

“I don’t care if I poop,” Vernon whines. He lifts up his heavy head for long enough to put a handful of skittles in his mouth and check his phone, and when he sees that he doesn’t have any messages, he goes back down.

“What’s wrong with you?” Allison accuses.

Vernon does not know how to _say_ what’s wrong with him. He makes a noise. When she doesn’t respond, he makes another one. Finally, she says, “Is this about whoever you’re dating?”

Vernon turns his head so he can look at her without sitting up. He says, “How did you know?”

“Because it’s obvious,” she says, like she doesn’t care that much. “You’re always smiling at your phone. You’re home late all the time. I’m not an idiot.”

“I just got rejected.”

“Spill?”

Vernon sits up and sighs, scrubbing his palms over his face. He normally wouldn’t, ever. But he’s feeling crazy. He can’t trust his own interpretations of things anymore if he managed to fumble the bag so bad that he got friendzoned by someone he’s been dating for a month and a half.

“Okay, well,” Vernon starts. And then it all just comes out. “I met this guy. At the boba shop I study at. Remember when Dad kept trying to get me to get an allergy test because I was sick for like two weeks? Well, like, the boba shop guy kept putting dairy in my drinks by accident. Or on purpose, I don’t know. But I just kept going back and like, eventually he apologized a lot for the milk thing. And he thought I was white, but then he found out we’re Korean too, and he said sorry for that too. Which is nice, cause like, I don’t even expect people to say sorry about that? I don’t know if they need to. Then like, when I went back to Half & Half, we ended up talking for real and then I helped him close the store and then we went on a date that night.”

He stops to breathe. Allison stares back at him blankly, and then says, “Wow, I’m learning so much about you.”

Vernon figures that’s true. He goes on, “It’s been like six weeks or something and we’ve been going on dates like, I don’t know, two or three times a week? A lot. But he told me he’d never kissed a guy before, so I was like, okay we’re taking it slow, that’s chill. Then he invited me to this party and showed me off like his date the whole time, so I thought that was progress, until he took me outside and told me he was happy we were _friends_. He said it all weird, too. Like, don’t get the wrong idea, _bro_.”

“When did you actually start dating?” Allison asks.

“We’ve been dating the whole time,” Vernon says. "I just told you."

“No, like, when did you decide you were dating?”

“Wait, what do you mean?”

Allison’s chest heaves with a long suffering sigh. “This is why I have to ask you if you’re sleeping even when your eyes are open. Like, when did you _ask him_ if he wanted to _date you_ , stupid?”

Vernon squirms in his chair.

“You haven’t talked about it?” Allison rolls her eyes. She tears open another Snickers bar and shoves the whole mini into her mouth. “Oh my god. Literally even 10th graders know you have to ask someone out before you’re dating.”

“But, uh,” Vernon tries.

“You can’t just vibe your way through this one.”

“Oh wow,” Vernon says.

“Text him,” she says. “Send him a message right now. Ask him if he wants to be your boyfriend.”

Vernon winces, takes out his phone, and finally says, “I’ll ask him to hang out, okay? I’ll talk to him next time I see him.”

“You have to, or else you’re stupid.”

“Got it,” he says, swatting at her with one hand while he types with the other.

**vernon:** made it home safe 🤘🏼  
**vernon:** im really sorry i bounced like that  
**vernon:** i fr had a lot of fun and i wanna hang with all of your friends again soon 🎃  
**vernon:** can we have dinner this week?? any day, whenever yr free

Allison snatches his phone from his hands as soon as he stops sending the messages, eyes scanning rapidfire. She shoves it back at him and says, “Oh my god, tell him he looked good. Hurry up. With a heart.”

“Fine, sheesh,” he says, and just as he sends, _btw you looked gr8 tonite 🖤,_ Seungkwan responds.

**seungkwan:** omg don’t worry about it at alllllllllllllll, thank you for coming, i know it’s a lot. i’m a lot. sorry again! yes to dinner, duh! tomorrow? is that too soon?

Seungkwan _love_ reacts to Vernon’s last message and Vernon’s stomach flutters. He’s got it bad.

**vernon:** not too soon. :) i’ll borrow the car and pick u up at your place  
**seungkwan:** oh wow, fancy!  
**vernon:** :) see you tomorrow seungkwan  
**seungkwan:** 💗💗💗

xxx

“You looked _great_ tonight,” Momo says. “Heart.”

Sana says, “You _looked_ great tonight.”

Momo tries it like, “ _You_ looked great to _night_.”

Dahyun yells, “Any day? Whenever Y R _free_?!”

Seungkwan bats at them from where he’s curled up on Dahyun’s bed. “I get it,” he says, still sounding a little weepy. “Give me my phone back.”

“He’s so cute,” Dahyun says. “I take back what I said about him being a stupid boy. I totally approve. Look,” and she shoves his phone in his face to point energetically at the heart Vernon sent. “He _hearts_ you.”

Seungkwan is too tired to fight, but he still has it in him to disagree. “He still like, stormed out.”

Chaeyoung asks, “Yeah, but let’s review the tapes. What exactly did you say?”

“He said you all were so cool, and then I was feeling really happy that he came even though I’m a horrorshow, so I was like, I’m happy we’re friends.” Seungkwan sniffles. “I don’t know what else.”

Seungkwan lifts his head to look around at them when no one says anything. They’re all looking right back at him like he’s stupid. “What?”

Dahyun raises her eyebrows at him and waves her hand in a _go on_ gesture. Momo says, “Are you serious?”

“Oh,” Seungkwan says, feeling hollowed out with a mixture of dread and excitement as it all clicks into place. “Oh.”

“Fuck that, you need to say it. Come on.” Dahyun shoves his shoulder.

“He... doesn’t wanna be my friend,” Seungkwan says quietly.

“Because?”

Seungkwan can’t say it.

“Because he likes you,” Chaeyoung supplies. “Right?”

“Seungkwan Boo,” Dahyun says seriously. She takes his face in her hands and squeezes. He closes his eyes. He wants to cry again. This is supposed to be a good thing, but he’s too scared. He doesn’t know what to do with something so good. “I wanna hear you say it.”

Seungkwan swallows. He brings his hands to cover Dahyun’s on his cheeks. He takes a deep breath. It feels like it can hurt him, because it can. It has. It probably will. But it also makes him feel really good. Vernon makes him feel good. They’re good to each other. And Vernon doesn’t want to be friends.

So, Seungkwan admits it. “He likes me.”


	3. Chapter 3

Maybe Vernon is stupid.

He’s been hanging out with Seungkwan for about an hour, and so far he’s kept it together. He helped close at Half & Half, where he’s basically on the schedule at this point. He thought about sitting Seungkwan down there, which would probably have been a smart idea, but he’s been gassing himself up for this all day, and now he has to stick to his plan.

Earlier, when Seungkwan texted him, _what are we wearing tonight?_ He should have just been like, _whatever you’re already wearing_. Instead, parroting Allison’s suggestion, he typed _fancy casual._ She helped Vernon get ready, too, after walking into his room this afternoon and seeing all his clothes unloaded onto his bed with no decisions made. She made him wear skinny jeans and a short sleeve button-down over a plain t-shirt, some stuff in his hair and a fresh pair of Jordans from the back of his closet, because Seungkwan is worth it.

After clocking out, Seungkwan went to get changed in the cramped little bathroom. He came out wearing a white turtleneck and a pale pink jacket with his regular cuffed jeans and white sneakers. Seemed like there was stuff in his hair, too, with lips shiny and a bit more pink than they had been before. So, as usual, he looked better than Vernon, though Vernon doesn’t mind that. He likes that Seungkwan is so particular about his appearance. His care pays off.

In the weird, dim light of the closed store, they sized each other up for a second. Then Seungkwan broke it, said, “Oh my gosh, we look so fancy.” He laughed, threw his messenger bag over his shoulder, and dug out his keys. It’s probably a good thing that Seungkwan is acting like nothing is wrong, or else Vernon might be losing it, too.

On the way out, Vernon got the door to his mom’s 4Runner for Seungkwan. The he pulled up a map to a nice Filipino restaurant. Seungkwan once said he wanted to try it, so Vernon saved it for later. Around the time they were seated, Vernon realized that doing this in public was an awful idea.

Yet here they are, seated at a table in the very center of the room at this restaurant among a bunch of real adults. Vernon pours them waters from the pitcher and gets it all over the table. Seungkwan laughs too hard, and then neither of them can think of anything to say. Seungkwan is trying really hard to be fun, but he’s starting to seem stressed out. It’s because he knows what’s coming, right? Because he’s nervous about it too? Vernon’s making himself believe that’s it: this is mutual. They just need to talk about it. Vernon just has to say that he wants to be Seungkwan’s boyfriend, and all of this will suddenly get easier.

First, they have to decide what to eat. Vernon suggests the coconut adobo chicken. Seungkwan suggests an appetizer.

“Wait, are you not hungry?” Vernon asks. He’d be so embarrassed if he went all this way to take Seungkwan to a nice place when he isn’t even hungry. He already had to ask his mom if he could use the family credit card, which was horrible. Luckily, he didn’t have to evade any questions about what he was doing. If he had to tell his mom about this, he’d probably just have given up instead. I’m asking a boy out? I’m asking out a boy I thought I was already going out with. On the advice of my 16-year-old sister, I’m taking a boy out to a nice dinner to show him that I like him for real.

“Oh, I’m okay,” Seungkwan says. Which doesn’t mean anything.

“I mean,” Vernon says, “Whatever you want, you know. I got it.”

“Oh, no no,” Seungkwan tries. “We can split?”

They hardly ever split, and they definitely won’t be splitting tonight, because this is Vernon’s attempt at actually taking Seungkwan out. But he can’t say it like that before they’ve even talked about what they are.

So, whatever, now’s as good a time as any. Vernon says, “No, I’ve got it tonight. Actually, that’s kind of related to, uh, something I wanted to talk to you about.”

Before Seungkwan even has a chance to react, a waitress comes to the table and says, “Hi guys!”

“Hello,” Seungkwan says, completely charming.

“How’s it going tonight?”

“Amazing,” Seungkwan beams, right as Vernon unconvincingly says, “Great.”

“Great,” the waitress says. “Well, do either of you have any questions?”

Vernon goes to ask about dairy, but Seungkwan interjects first. “He’s really allergic to dairy, so, what can we order?”

The waitress looks between them like she wants them to know she totally takes it seriously. She says, “Actually, any of our main entrees should be okay.”

Vernon looks at Seungkwan, who makes a face like he’s good, so Vernon turns back to the waitress. “Then I think we’re ready? Are we ready?”

“Yes,” Seungkwan says. “I think I’ll just get the rice flour chicharon.”

Vernon says, “Yeah, we’ll have that as an appetizer. And then we’ll get the coconut chicken adobo and the wok roasted veggies. To start.”

Seungkwan looks at Vernon a little searchingly. Vernon goes, “It’s _fine,_ ” and turns back to the waitress.

“Alright,” she says, “Sounds great. I’ll bring that out shortly.”

Vernon nods and turns back to Seungkwan as the waitress walks away. He says, “Um, I wanted to talk to you about, well, us.”

Seungkwan’s face falls for a second, but he valiantly pulls his mouth right back up into a huge smile. “Sure, what’s up?”

Oh, it’s so hard. Vernon’s never let himself get into a situation like this before. He’s never liked someone enough to get his feelings hurt like he did last night. He has a little bit of anxiety about public speaking, he’s had to admit he was wrong before, but it’s never been so physically difficult to push words out. Seungkwan, in his bright white turtleneck and his pink lips always pouting, is waiting for Vernon to speak.

“Well, I thought that we started dating in September,” he says.

Seungkwan’s eyes get even bigger. “In September?” he asks sharply. “September, when I was poisoning you?”

Vernon wants to be like, _it’s not technically poison_ , but he’s trying to be serious. He’s trying to express something for real. He’s been gearing up since last night, practicing. He says, “Yeah, the night we went out for chicken. I thought that was our first date.”

“I was paying you back for my crimes,” Seungkwan says. He’s being a little pushy, like, insisting, which makes Vernon very worried very quickly. He’s misread the whole thing, maybe?

“Hey guys,” the waitress says as she arrives back at their table. They both look up at her, Seungkwan with his huge, charming smile again, and Vernon probably looking like a ghost. “I just wanted to double check as we’re getting your food going. Did you have a chance to look at our beer and wine list?”

“Oh,” Vernon says, “I think we’re good with just water.”

“Great,” says the waitress. “Just making sure you were all set.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Vernon says.

The waitress walks away again, and Vernon turns back to Seungkwan. “Was it not a date?”

“I don’t know,” Seungkwan hisses. “I don’t know what a date is.”

“Do you want to go on dates with me?” Wow, this really wasn’t how he had rehearsed this conversation. In his head, it was gonna be a lot more like, _I’ve liked you since the first time we met, even though you were really mean. I want to be with you._ Less like an argument.

Seungkwan says, “Yeah, duh.”

“Cool,” Vernon says. That’s a relief. “I want to go on dates with you too.”

“Are you sure?” Seungkwan says. “I acted crazy at Dahyun’s party, and I act crazy all the time. Literally, I’m like this for real. I wasn’t kidding.”

Vernon says slowly, “I know. I like it.”

Seungkwan goes on. “You ‘like’ it?” He’s looking at Vernon like he’s stupid.

Vernon nods. “Yeah? I mean, yeah. I like _you_.”

“Okay well, I like you too,” Seungkwan snaps, like they’re in an argument.

“Well, cool,” Vernon says. They’re looking at each other. Vernon’s trying to figure out how he’s going to ask Seungkwan to be his boyfriend without getting yelled at.

“Alright,” says the waitress as she brings them their appetizer. “Rice flour chicharon for the table.”

“Wow, thank you,” says Seungkwan, the smile that he uses at Half & Half for his least favorite customers bright on his face. “Thank you so much.”

“Of course, guys. Do you need anything else right now?”

“Um, more water?” Vernon asks. He’s had like three glasses already.

“Sure, I’ll be right back with that,” she says pleasantly.

Vernon doesn’t want to finish this conversation until she gets back with the water. Seungkwan leans in and whispers, “This waitress is like, too much.”

Vernon tries to be lighthearted. “She’s attentive."

“She’s smothering us.”

“More water,” she says as she arrives back at the table, “And your food should be out in just a second.”

Vernon nods, and then he takes a deep breath to ask Seungkwan out. But Seungkwan gets to it before Vernon can. He says, “So like, I guess we should just, um, keep it casual for now?”

Ah. Casual. Vernon tries not to show his sadness about that. It makes sense, because Seungkwan hasn’t dated before, that he wouldn’t want to just dive into something serious. Vernon is probably stupid for thinking that six weeks was enough to be sure. He was probably stupid for not wanting to take his time with this himself. It’s a fair thing to ask, and not a rejection, and Vernon doesn’t want to be pushy. So he nods and says, “Um, yeah. Casual sounds good. Totally.”

“Awesome,” says Seungkwan. “We can just, like, see what happens. Keep it chill.”

“That sounds good,” Vernon says. “Okay, cool. Yeah.”

“Yeah,” Seungkwan says. “Cool.”

xxx

Vernon gets home late and slithers into his room. His mom gives him about two minutes before she’s lightly knocking on the door and gently saying “Can I come in?”

Vernon, honestly, is feeling emotionally fried. Scraped out. A fresh crater where his brain used to be. He really thought there would be some satisfaction in coming to an agreement with Seungkwan, but it felt strained. He doesn’t even know what they said. He didn’t even taste the food. This was supposed to be his moment. He tells his mom, “Can it wait?”

She cracks the door. “It’s already waited a while.”

“Okay,” he says. Whatever. “Come in.”

When he came in here, he just pulled off his shoes and sat down on the bed and started looking at the wall. So he’s still dressed for his date, and it feels really stupid to have his mom in her pajamas coming to sit next to him. Even stupider when she says, “You look handsome.”

“Thanks,” he mutters without moving his mouth.

“So, what did you use the credit card for tonight?” she asks.

“Dinner,” he says. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Where did you go?”

“Lasa,” he says. “With my friend.”

Vernon still doesn’t know exactly what this is about, but he guesses he isn’t surprised when his mom says, “Is this the friend Allison told me about?”

“Of course she did,” he says, and crushes his face in a pillow. “Please don’t make me talk about it right now.”

“You don’t have to. I just feel like your dad and I have been really out of the loop lately. I’m interested in what you’ve been up to.” Vernon’s mom is so, like, nice. He shouldn’t complain. He just doesn’t want to talk about some things.

He says, “I don’t want to talk about it like _right_ now.”

“I’m not upset with you.”

“I know.” He says it into the pillow. He feels like he’s nine years old.

“Okay,” his mom says. He can’t see her, but he can feel when she braces her hand against the bed. Her weight shifts like she’s going to leave, and he feels bad about shutting her out. It’s not like he’s embarrassed about Seungkwan, or thinks he’s doing anything wrong. As soon as the thought comes, he feels guilty for hiding it at all.

“I’m not hiding,” he says, and her weight settles. He removes the pillow from over his face and expels all the air in his chest. He looks up at the ceiling and his mom waits him out in her patient, elementary-school-teacher way. While supervising homework time, she always told Vernon and Allison that 8 seconds is the optimal waiting time after questions, because people need time to work up the courage to answer hard questions. Vernon thought that 8 seconds sounded way too short until now as the silence boils him alive.

“His name is Seungkwan. We met at a boba shop and we go to school together.”

“And now you go to nice restaurants together.” Her voice sounds like she’s laughing at him.

He throws an arm over his eyes. “I wasn’t trying to sneak around. It was just, weird. I didn’t know what to say.”

“Is it still weird?” she asks delicately. “Did something happen tonight?”

“We’re dating now,” he says, as casually as he can. He pushes himself up and forces himself to shrug and meet her eyes. “So, yeah.”

He knows he shouldn’t be scared. He has great parents and he knows that they’ll love him no matter what. They’ve said so. So, it’s not a big deal. It’s just been a long day. A long few days. Technically nothing has gone wrong, but he still kind of feels like he’s in trouble.

“That’s wonderful,” she says, her lips curving into a smile. Vernon can’t take it anymore, and he looks down at his lap. Then, she says, “Hey. Can I say a corny mom thing?”

Vernon mumbles, “I can’t stop you.”

“It’s really cool to have a son as cool as you,” she says, patting him on the knee. “You are always yourself. That’s really brave.”

“Mom,” he groans. Then, he tries to remember that he’s a grown-up now. He’s not a teenager, even though tonight has kind of made him feel like one again. Honestly, it means a lot to him for her to say that. It’s like, a privilege that he gets to choose to come out. He knows that. He feels like he’s making a big deal out of nothing, but it’s still been hard on him.

He shakes the embarrassment off and then looks at her and says, “Thanks. It’s cool to have a mom who’s cool like you.”

She sighs dramatically. “I used to be cooler.”

Vernon shrugs. He thinks that if he’s half as cool as his parents when he’s a parent, he’d be pretty happy about that.

“So,” she says sneakily, her inflection eerily close to Allison’s snooping voice. “Show me a picture.”

Once his mom is satisfied by the pictures of him and Seungkwan that he showed her ( _oh, he is darling_ , _isn’t he?_ ), she takes mercy on him and leaves him in the dark of his room. He stares at the ceiling for a long moment, and then reaches for his phone and opens up his messages. He considers texting Tobi, or maybe even Wonwoo, who is kind of good about this stuff. But they’re not the people he wants to talk to. After hovering over his name for a second, he opens up his chat with Seungkwan.

_i think i came out to my mommmmmmmm lol_  
_feel like a melted slurpee 💀_

xxx

“I can’t believe you told him you want to keep it casual,” Dahyun cackles. “You spent 6 months researching what insulated water bottle you were going to buy. You have a 20 year plan in your Google docs.”

“He doesn’t know that!” Seungkwan whines. “It’s like, method acting. I can do anything I put my mind to. So I’m chill now.”

“Ice cold,” Dahyun agrees sagely for one moment, and then snorts.

“FYI, if you’re not with me, you’re against me,” Seungkwan says. Then, Vernon’s messages drop down into his video call. It only takes him a split second to decide how to react. “—I have to call you back later.”

“What?” Dahyun barks, pulling the phone very close to her face so all he can see are her eyes bugged out and the dark flare of her nose. “It’s going to be like this now? Wow. Wowwwwwwww.”

“Yes,” Seungkwan says matter-of-factly and then blows her a kiss. “Goodbye.”

He navigates to his chat with Vernon and presses the video call button, before he can even think about if he looks too gross and tired to be on camera. Vernon answers right away, but his whole screen is dark, just the barest shadow of an outline moving through the dark.

Seungkwan’s stomach drops and then floats back up. “Oh, hi.”

“Oh, hi,” Vernon echoes in his creaky, low voice. Seungkwan can hear the smile in it.

“I was just checking on you,” Seungkwan says, pushing himself to a seat from where he’d been sprawled in bed chatting with Dahyun. He settles on a camera angle that flatters his jawline. He tries to keep his tone light as he asks, “Did it... go okay?”

There’s a click, and then the screen floods with a warm orange light. There is Vernon, face closer to the camera than Seungkwan expected. Seungkwan must make a face, because Vernon laughs and goes, “Your face.”

Seungkwan carefully rearranges his expression away from what he can only assume was his _I’m on the phone with the hottest guy I’ve ever been on the phone with_ face. “I’m not making a face.”

“Okaaaay,” Vernon says, and presses his lips into a poorly repressed grin.

“ _Your_ face,” Seungkwan says, scrunching up his nose. They’re being so disgusting, but he can’t stop. This is how people start down the road to baby talk, a line which Seungkwan has made many oaths with his friends never to cross. It’s been like three hours into his first relationship and he’s already like this.

_Casual_ relationship, he reminds himself. Idiot.

Then, Vernon’s smile breaks out across his face and Seungkwan feels something inside of himself shift in a way that feels permanent. Seungkwan pretends to brush something off of his bedspread to hide whatever his face is trying to betray now.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Seungkwan reminds him in a stern voice, once he’s restored his dignity.

Vernon turns on his side and pulls the phone close to his face. Vernon doesn’t have to worry about angles, because he always looks like himself. He sighs and says, “It was good. Just lots of uh. Events. Today.”

“ _Good_?” Seungkwan asks, almost offended. He raises an eyebrow. “Look, if we’re going to be like,” Seungkwan pauses for just a moment too long and rushes through the rest of the sentence to make up for it. “Dating then you have to get used to telling stories with _way_ more detail.”

“ _If_ we’re going to be dating.” Vernon is doing his sneaky grin again. Seungkwan feels like he’s being eaten alive.

Seungkwan can’t take it any longer. He hides his face in his pillow for a second. “Stop.”

“You said it,” Vernon teases.

Seungkwan rolls his eyes and then curls up on his side too. "Wait, really. What did she say? How did it happen?"

Vernon shrugs, the movement scrunching up his cheeks a little. “It was chill. She asked me where we went. She probably wouldn’t have asked, but I told my sister about you last night and she has the biggest mouth ever.”

Seungkwan tries to be casual when he asks, “You told your sister about me?”

Vernon wrinkles his nose and then smooths his hair down with his free hand. He huffs out a little laugh. “Yeah, I told her about the party.”

“Oh _god_ ,” Seungkwan whines, covering his face with his hand. “So embarrassing.”

“I had fun,” Vernon says, simple. It’s so unadorned and his face is so earnest that Seungkwan knows it would make _him_ rude to push it. Vernon likes him. That’s it. Seungkwan has put him through a lot as he tried to tell him so. The least Seungkwan can do is try to believe him.

So instead, Seungkwan says, “I did too.”

They look at each other again, and then Vernon laughs. “Oh, wow.”

“Your _mom_ , Hansol,” Seungkwan reminds him, impatient to move on from the fool he’s making of himself.

“Right,” Vernon nods. “Uh, yeah. So she just asked me about you and I told her. Then, she said some supportive mom stuff. And I showed her the picture we took at the skate park and she said you were ‘darling’.”

He does the air quotes and opens his eyes very wide for the delivery of the compliment. Then his face clears and he adds, “I said, yeah, I know.”

Seungkwan feels his face heat up. He purses his lips together and says, “Well, duh. Moms love me.”

Seungkwan readjusts himself, tucks his pillow underneath his head. Carefully, he says, “I know you’re like, too chill to make a big deal about it. But it’s a big deal. I’ll make the big deal about it if you need me to.”

Vernon’s attention is always very focused, but it seems even more intense now that Seungkwan knows Vernon is looking at him like that because he likes him. “Thanks, Seungkwan.”

“I’m serious,” Seungkwan says, drawing the screen closer, feeling a little crazy. “Should I come up with a cheer?”

Vernon barks out a laugh, turning his head into his pillow. “If you want to.”

Seungkwan does come up with a cheer, delivered with as much cheerleader precision as he can manage while still horizontal. Then, like a blink, the conversation melts into their normal cadence; Seungkwan asks about the show that Vernon got chosen to cover for his arts journalism class and Vernon asks about his mom and Dahyun and the professor that he hates. The hostile environment of their date almost made him forget that talking to Vernon is the easiest thing in the world. It’s easy to trade slips of conversation until his eyes feel heavy, both of the lights in their rooms going dark again along the way.

“Are you asleep?” Vernon murmurs.

Eyes closed, Seungkwan mumbles, “No.” With effort, he cracks his eyes open. “I’m alert.”

Vernon’s teeth flash on a yawn in the grainy darkness of the call. Vernon says, “Okay. Me too, then.”

They fall asleep, neither of them willing to let it end.

xxx

The UCLA transfer application opens on November 1st. Vernon is aware of this, as it’s impossible to be in Seungkwan’s orbit and not be. Before, when Seungkwan would talk about UCLA, they were just hanging out. But now, they’re in each others’ lives in a big way. At least, that’s how it feels for Vernon. He thinks they would have given up a long time ago if they weren’t working towards something real.

What he’s getting at is: he’s starting to think about the future. He’s not a very future-oriented person, which has not caused very many problems for him up to this point. He takes things day by day and makes decisions as they come up. It’s not like he’s thinking about the future _because_ of Seungkwan; fielding Seungkwan’s stress is just the occasion. And as it turns out, it’s a good time to start thinking about what might be next. A lot of things are changing, but it’s sort of right on time.

He does well in school. He does get all his homework done and he’s always been a good test taker. Lately, he’s been feeling good about his essays, too. Whenever he thought about transferring before, he thought he might end up at one of the UCs that accept everyone who meets the GPA requirement. UCLA could be cool, though. It would be nice to not have to move. Tobi is planning to stay in the city, too. And Seungkwan is obviously going to get in.

He’s not sure what he wants to study yet, but he’s taken a few classes in the last year that he’s enjoyed enough to consider for a major. Vernon likes making Tobi’s videos. He really liked his Journalism class last quarter. He likes listening to people talk about their lives and he has a face that people always tell him is easy to trust.

So that could be something. It would be nice to stay close to Seungkwan. By the time the school year starts, they’ll have been dating for almost a year. It feels important now, but he imagines it’ll feel even more important then. He might as well give it a shot.

xxx

Acting slick one afternoon, Vernon held out his hand for balance while he was skateboarding next to Seungkwan, and then he didn’t let it go. Even at the bus stop, even on the bus, he held Seungkwan’s smaller, softer hand with purpose. After a bit, it became like a game, keeping it held as long as possible, pretending it wasn’t happening. They were walking to the 711 and lifting their held hands over benches, slithering through tight spaces where the sidewalks are narrow, not letting go.

Since then, they’ve started holding hands all the time. Now they both do it, on the bus or when they’re walking or even above the table at Half & Half one afternoon during Seungkwan’s break. Vernon really likes it. It makes his heart flutter a little, every time somebody might be looking. Yeah, they’re dating. It’s casual, but they like each other. It’s really cool.

Other than that, not that much has changed. It doesn’t exactly feel just like normal, but they’re still doing all the normal things. They’re hanging out almost every day, at least to meet up for lunch at school or for Vernon to chill at Half & Half for fifteen minutes on his way home. More often, they find real time: Vernon helps Seungkwan close the store and they head off on some quiet adventure.

It’s starting to get a little awkward, but Vernon is realizing that it is always a little awkward. Every milestone has had to be fought over; it’s always traumatic. He thought he was waiting for things to go back to normal, but he’s kind of waiting for things to become normal for the first time.

Case in point: kissing. Vernon has tried to kiss Seungkwan three times. The first time was at the bus stop, which Vernon realized was unromantic as soon as he went for it, so it didn’t wound him too much when Seungkwan dodged it and started talking about his homework.

The second time was at Half & Half, when they were closing. The lights were dimmed and the space was totally theirs, safely liminal, and they were sitting at the last open table for a minute before flipping the chairs up and heading out. The conversation had quieted, and they were looking at each other like it meant something, and Vernon leaned in. At the last second, Seungkwan blatantly turned his face away.

Vernon let it go again. This is Seungkwan, and sometimes he makes things complicated. It’s fine, Vernon really doesn’t mind it, other than the occasional anxiety it causes him to be the one that makes the first move. But it’s really not the end of the world for him to have to try a few times before Seungkwan really believes it’s cool. The thing is, it _is_ cool, and Vernon likes Seungkwan enough to make it happen.

Except, Vernon is starting to worry just a bit. The third time he tries to kiss Seungkwan, it’s in the hallway outside Seungkwan’s apartment. It’s eerily quiet, as it usually is, and the light is too bright for romance. But no one is around, and they’re about to chill and do homework for a couple hours, and Vernon was really hoping they’d get to use at least a couple minutes of their private time to, like, be touching. Since they’re dating, and everything. Vernon doesn’t wanna feel like a weirdo for wanting to kiss the person he’s dating. He goes for it outside the door, and Seungkwan turns away again, like he’s just going to reach for something in his bag.

It makes Vernon wonder if he’s doing the wrong thing, so he says, “Do you... not want to kiss me?”

Something complicated passes over Seungkwan’s face. Like, surprise, and then resignation. Then he kisses Vernon right there.

It’s very determined. Their teeth knock together, which is uncomfortable, but that doesn’t deter him. He presses his mouth against Vernon’s and kisses him with a force that almost knocks him off his feet.

Then he pulls back, and looks at Vernon like he wants some kind of confirmation before he can do anything else.

Honestly, Vernon’s not deterred either, though that wasn’t exactly what he had in mind. The kiss had all of the things that drew him to Seungkwan in the first place. Seungkwan’s expression before he went in to kiss Vernon was kind of how he looked hovering in the door to his study room, determined to make things right. He likes that he can always count on Seungkwan to try really hard. It makes him want to try, too.

He takes Seungkwan’s hand between them, and looks at him, and now that he thinks it’ll be okay, he leans in and gives him the soft kiss he’s been holding in. A kiss that doesn’t have anywhere to hurry off to. In the hall outside Seungkwan’s apartment, one hand still held, they lean into each other and breathe each other’s air until Vernon gets self-conscious and laughs into Seungkwan’s mouth.

“What?” Seungkwan asks, sharp eyes, no longer pliant like he was a second ago. “Oh no, what?”

“Nothing, nothing,” Vernon says, still smiling. “I’m not making fun of you, I’m just happy.”

Seungkwan acts a bit suspicious about it, but Vernon catches him smiling too as he digs for the key to the apartment. He pulls it out, the heavy bronze thing like a relic from the past, and the tries it in the lock. Then he tries it again. Vernon watches him do his practiced jiggle, take the key out of the lock, jiggle it again. A third time. Then he jams it in hard and shakes it like force might dislodge whatever’s stuck. Then he tries it gently, then even more gently.

Seungkwan texts his roommates and paces back and forth for a minute while Vernon stands by the door with nowhere useful to put his body. He wipes the key off on his pants, then he tries it again. He pulls a tube of chapstick out of his bag and greases the key up before sliding it in again. He mumbles some stuff that Vernon can’t even understand. He whines like he’s gonna sob. He curses in English and Korean.

It takes him about five minutes to give up, and only then because there are tears in his eyes and Vernon puts a hand on his shoulder and says, “Let’s take a break.”

Seungkwan says, “I hate this fucking apartment.” He leans back against the wall and slides down until he’s sitting, and Vernon comes and crumples to the floor next to him. Their bags are piled next to them, and Vernon’s skateboard is leaned up against the wall. They look at each other and Seungkwan laughs joylessly.

Then, with nothing to do until someone lets them in or they gather themselves enough to go somewhere else, they practice kissing some more.

After about ten minutes, Seungkwan has shifted almost into Vernon’s lap. He’s kissing him hard against the wall again, but this time it’s sweet, like the thing he wants to prove is that he likes Vernon so much, not just that he can give someone a kiss when challenged to. Vernon’s got one hand on the ground holding himself up against his and Seungkwan’s weight, and the other resting on Seungkwan’s hip. Seungkwan wears things that drown him a little, and it feels like being let in on a secret to draw his hand to the curve of his waist. They’re getting into the groove, kissing deeper, finding a rhythm that feels good together. Pulling apart to say little things now and then. Vernon’s almost forgotten where they are when the door to the apartment opens from the inside.

Seungkwan flops off Vernon almost like he’s been shocked, so sudden that Vernon trails after him a bit. He wipes his mouth with the side of an arm and scrambles up to greet his roommate, who is a totally nonplussed man in a pair of lightning-patterned crocs.

“Hi, Jun, oh my god,” Seungkwan says. “We’ve been out here forever.”

“I was asleep,” Jun says, still completely expressionless. “You never told me your key was messed up. Hey,” he says to Vernon like an afterthought.

“Hi,” Vernon says with a wave, and then he follows Seungkwan, who is insistently dragging him by his other hand down the weird hallway to his room.

“Ugh, sorry about him,” Seungkwan whispers when he gets the door jammed closed.

“He was fine,” Vernon says easily. “I liked his crocs.” Then he kisses Seungkwan as they sit down on the bed. Now that he knows what Seungkwan’s mouth feels like on his, it’s really nice. See? They can figure out how to do things.

“You,” Seungkwan says, wrenching away from the kiss just to get a word in, “Would say that.” Then he leans back in, like even his urge to have the last word is a little weaker than the urge to be touching.

Later on, when they’re taking a break from kissing to do some work, Seungkwan talks into the silence with a hesitant little voice. “Sorry for not letting you kiss me,” he says without looking up from his book. “I wanted to.”

“It’s okay,” Vernon says. “Why didn’t you?”

“I don’t even know. Just anxious.”

Vernon nods. “Well, um. Thanks for...” he wants to say something really corny, like, _thanks for trusting me._ But that’s too weird. “Thanks for kissing me anyway.”

The homework takes a long time between all the little breaks they’re taking, and Vernon has to start thinking about getting home. He starts looking up bus schedules, and Seungkwan lets him do it for a minute before he huffs and says, “You can stay here if you want.”

Vernon looks up at him. He looks nice, his lips a little kiss-swollen, his cheeks a little pink, the smile resting on his face. His hair’s more mussed up than he usually lets it get; so is his nice pale blue button-down. Seungkwan says, “Really, you can.”

Vernon says, “Okay, yeah, that would be cool.”

Seungkwan looks really happy for a second, but then his face gets serious. “But I can’t... You can sleep in the bed, but I’m not ready to...”

“Cool, me neither,” Vernon laughs. “I’ll sleep in your bed, though, if you’ll have me. Unless you want me on the floor? Or the couch?” he’s teasing, and Seungkwan is rolling his eyes. “I can go out into the hall again if that’s better for you.”

“Shut _up_ ,” Seungkwan whines.

Vernon sticks his tongue out a little. “Okay, the bed’s fine then.”

Seungkwan starts digging around for some clothes for Vernon to sleep in, and ends up handing him a pair of gym shorts and a black t-shirt in XXL from Ariana Grade’s Dangerous Woman tour. Without being asked, Seungkwan explains, “It was all they had left at the merch table.” Vernon probably wouldn’t have bought a shirt at all if that were the case, but he likes that Seungkwan is that determined.

Vernon goes to the bathroom to change, for some reason, and when he comes back Seungkwan is in sleep clothes too. He’s dressed similarly, in gray sweatpants and a big, faded maroon shirt that says WCHS MARCHING BAND. Vernon asks, “Is that from your high school? Were you in marching band?”

“Yes,” Seungkwan says, with a superiority that makes Vernon laugh. “I was the section leader for the clarinets for three years.”

“Impressive.” Vernon nods for emphasis and Seungkwan narrows his eyes.

“It is. I was the youngest section leader _ever_.”

“Wow,” Vernon says. And then, just to see Seungkwan go pink, he adds, “I guess I’m dating a celebrity.”

They take their time going to bed, sitting on top of the covers chatting, laughing, looking at stuff on their phones. Seungkwan ends up with his head on Vernon’s chest, and Vernon thinks Seungkwan might hear his heart beating fast. There’s just something about this; not only the kissing, but Seungkwan’s little arms in the sleeves of his big, faded shirt, talking easily before getting in the same bed to sleep, the way Seungkwan traces the bones in Vernon’s knee with his finger and makes him ticklish. It’s more than just the kissing. It’s things like this that he wants most with Seungkwan.

When they get under the covers and turn the lights off, they lie facing each other and talk for a while longer. It’s hardly about anything, they just don’t want to let go and fall asleep.

At the last minute, Vernon remembers to send a message to his mom. _hi. im staying at seungkwans tonight._

She responds, _ok then. have fun._

xxx

Vernon woke up with bedhead that made Seungkwan laugh out loud first thing when he opened his eyes. Seungkwan _hates_ waking up, because he’s accrued a sleep debt so large that he’ll never work it off. For his whole life, every time he’s forced to pry open his eyes it has felt like a cosmic punishment. But Seungkwan woke up today smiling. He hasn’t really stopped except for periodic breaks where he pretends to be upset to be coy, desirable, cute, etc.

“You have to go,” Seungkwan urges Vernon with a hand to his chest. They are haunting the door to Seungkwan’s room, but neither have made moves to open it. In fact, Vernon is using his body to keep Seungkwan from opening it. Seungkwan is nauseously sure that they are flirting and with every passing second wondering more how he’s going to live like this indefinitely. “You’re going to be late.”

“Just a little,” Vernon says, shrugging and grinning. “Worth it.”

“Gag,” Seungkwan says facetiously. He can’t get the smile off of his face. This is sick. If Dahyun sees anything close to this amount of affection from them, his reputation will be irreparable. But Dahyun is not here now, so he has nothing to lose. "Just so you know, I’m not encouraging this new flippancy towards your education. Punctuality is important. You only get one chance to make a first impression. Et cetera. Are you going to kiss me goodbye or what?"

“Oh wow,” Vernon replies, which isn’t new, and it’s in his flirting voice, which Seungkwan realizes now also really isn’t new. The kissing is new, though. Seungkwan is still very, very concerned that he’s bad at it. They are both ostensibly trying to get Vernon out the door even though neither of them want him to go, so Seungkwan goes for a loud and showy kiss instead of something more existentially terrifying to him like how he’s supposed to use his tongue. Vernon laughs underneath the loud smack of their mouths and then pulls Seungkwan in close.

Seungkwan presses his cheek to Vernon’s shoulder and loops his arms around Vernon’s waist. Quietly, he asks, “Am I a bad kisser? You have to tell me.”

It slips out without him really giving permission, riding on leftover courage from the night before balanced with the honey-tinged sweetness of the morning. Seungkwan goes still and has a brief flash of horror as Vernon pulls away from him. Seungkwan widens his eyes. “Never mind. You have to lie.”

Vernon laughs, and then schools his face into a mockery of seriousness. “Okay, then... you’re a super bad kisser.”

Seungkwan smacks him on the arm and Vernon just laughs some more. Seungkwan spins him around and finally gets the door open. It’s bright in the hallway already, the morning inching closer to afternoon by the second. “I’m kicking you out. In fact, this is an eviction. I will be a lawyer in five years and I can serve the papers to you myself.”

“Are you trying to ask me to call you esquire now?” Vernon quips over his shoulder, and Seungkwan shoves him harder down the hallway. At the front door, Vernon toes his shoes back on and shoulders his backpack while giving perfunctory answers to Seungkwan’s routine logistical interrogation (what time are you out of class [6, and yes, he’s planning on coming by the shop during Seungkwan’s shift], what day do you want to hang out this weekend [both days], and does Vernon have any big tests that week [no]).

When Vernon leans in to give him a last kiss goodbye in the doorway, he murmurs, “I like kissing you, Seungkwan.”

Seungkwan feels his insides liquefy and then something inside of him shifts instantaneously from the floating, magical feeling to a deep and lasting dread. It’s all he can do is kiss Vernon back and get the door closed without it showing too clearly on his face.

xxx

Not ten minutes after Vernon leaves, Seungkwan checks his email and realizes that he has completely spaced on an extremely important assignment. Flippancy toward education Seungkwan’s ass. He has to be at work in 90 minutes, and he’ll get home with less than three hours before the submission deadline. Might as well give up on everything, then.

Then his bus is late, and there’s some guy trying to talk to him about the Bible at the bus stop, and Seungkwan forgot his headphones and doesn’t have the fortitude to be rude right now, so he just grits his teeth and lets it happen. It’s too hot for what Seungkwan’s wearing, but when he got dressed he was just thinking about seeing Vernon later. He’s losing his grip on reality. He was so relaxed an hour ago, but it’s like all the stress he forgot to feel when Vernon was paying warm attention to him has snapped back into him like a stretched rubber band.

Obviously, he’s in a particularly nasty mood at work. He’s stressed about school, and about how much he’s been embarrassing himself at Vernon. It’s supposed to be _casual_ , _Seungkwan_ , that means don’t act like you’re obsessed with him as soon as he lets you call him handsome.

Seungkwan has been crafting increasingly stressful and dire projections of the next 20 years of his life with Vernon while simultaneously analyzing every detail of the last 24 hours for signals that Vernon thinks he’s weird, ugly, or a bad kisser. On the bus earlier, he remembered the conversation from three weeks ago where he admitted outright to Vernon that he’d never kissed a boy before they were even _dating,_ and was consumed with a full body shuddering embarrassment that he actually had to close his eyes and take deep breaths about. Today, the day after their first kiss, Seungkwan really thought to himself, what if Vernon wants to adopt instead of surrogate? And is that enough of a deal breaker that they should just cut things off now?

Seeing Vernon in his clothes, in his bed, mussed up and comfortable this morning... it gave Seungkwan flashes of delusion that are starting to catch up to him as he gets settled into his shift. Casual? Casual. Seungkwan is casual about nothing. He wants Vernon in a promise ring or not at all, but this is what he gets for choosing an effortless chiller instead of another obsessive little demon.

It’s not _normal_. Seungkwan is under no delusion that it’s _normal_. In fact, it’s a level of neurotic that over the course of the day has made Seungkwan worried for himself in a serious way. Like maybe he’s not just _not ready_ for this, but there’s something really wrong with him that he shouldn’t inflict on someone else, let alone the nicest boy in the world.

The thing about customers is that they reflect vibes, so they’re always meaner when Seungkwan’s already stressed out. Everything is hell, actually. His Vernon-kissing bubble has burst, giving way to the fluorescent lights buzzing at the inside of his skull. The fridges whir obnoxiously and too many customers ask too many questions. Jeongyeon asks Seungkwan if he has more boba going, and he snaps at her, and she rolls her eyes and says, “Whatever it is, it’s not my fault.”

She goes on lunch early to escape him, and he catches up on some cleaning tasks, harassing the bleach rag and frowning hard enough to give himself early wrinkles.

While he’s alone in the store, Wonder Girls turned up loud enough to be abrasive, scrubbing at nasty stains and mumbling at himself, Joshua Hong appears. As if this day could get worse. He’s dressed all nice in a big cream knit sweater and expensive jeans, like Seungkwan but hotter, as usual. Seungkwan audibly groans.

Josh rolls his eyes. He says, “I’m here to see Jeongyeon.” Unspoken, _so cool it._

Seungkwan kind of forgot that Josh and Jeongyeon were real friends, not just for Instagram. He says, “She’s on lunch. I don’t know where she went.”

“‘Kay,” Josh says. But then doesn’t leave or go to sit down. He keeps looking at Seungkwan, like he’s thinking about something, pouting with his perfect hot face. He says, “Is there, like, something I did to you? Do you need me to apologize for something?”

“What? No.” Seungkwan is offended that Josh would even ask him something like that. It’s nasty. And no, Seungkwan doesn’t need an _apology_ for Josh being Josh. He doesn’t need to apologize for being so much of everything Seungkwan wants for himself and also hates. He’s just annoying, and this day is already testing him.

“Okay, because you’re always pretty mean to me, and I don’t really know why.”

Yikes. First of all, even Joshua’s voice, smooth and placid and vapid even when he’s saying real shit, like, so unbothered by everything, is annoying. Second, he’s right about Seungkwan always being mean, and Seungkwan resents being seen. “I’m not _mean_ ,” he says, meanly. The nerve of Josh.

“Are you like okay?”

Honestly, they’re alone in the store, and Seungkwan has been about three seconds away from crying for about three hours straight. Combatively, he says, “Um, not really.”

Joshua looks a bit uncomfortable, but he still says, “Do you want to, like, talk about it?”

Seungkwan is staying offended on principle. The principle being that Josh is his rival, the evil, brainless counterpart to good smart Seungkwan. But Seungkwan is also aware that he’s acting a way that he sometimes acts. Mean on purpose, in order to avoid accepting reality. Josh is looking at him with the same eyes that Vernon sometimes gives him, determined to see through to the heart of him, no matter how much he defends himself against it. It is making Seungkwan feel more stupid to keep fighting. So he says, “Okay.”

Josh gives him the smallest smile. Humiliating.

“Do you remember the guy I took to Dahyun’s Halloween party?”

“Your boyfriend?”

“Yet again,” Seungkwan sighs dramatically, “Everyone knows more about my life than I do. No, not my boyfriend. But we are dating, and it is ruining my life.”

“Why?” Josh asks. “Also, not to be, like, rude, but can I get a drink?”

Seungkwan laughs joylessly. “Of course you can. What do you want?”

“Um. Iced strawberry milk with honey boba, please.”

“Of course,” Seungkwan says, more about the absolute _Josh_ of the drink than his willingness to make it.

He starts putting it together and finds himself continuing to talk, despite his best efforts to shut up. Josh asked _why_ , and Seungkwan actually has an answer for that. “So like, I’ve been sabotaging this relationship since before it even started, and I spend half of my waking hours convinced that the next time Vernon sees me he’s gonna realize it isn’t worth it. So I try to fix it, and I always make it worse. Like, everything I do, no matter how hard I try, is always worse than the last thing. Plus I like him way more than he likes me, which I guess I should just get used to.”

“What do you do to fix it?” Josh asks.

Seungkwan adds ice and turns around to seal the lid. “I try to pretend like I’m normal and make him forget that I’m not.”

“Hm,” Josh thinks. “Oh, thank you,” he says as he takes his stupid pink drink.

“Welcome.”

“You should just talk to him,” Josh says after popping his straw into his cup and taking a dainty sip. “Like, I assume you haven’t talked to him about this, if you have to tell me about it.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Seungkwan jams his fingers around on the iPad to type in Josh’s drink. “I don’t even know why I’m talking to youabout this. You’re like, the last person who would get it, no offense.”

"Why?" Josh takes another sip of his drink, standing on the other side of the counter and truly challenging Seungkwan to reveal himself.

“I don’t, like, just flirt with everyone. I can’t just mess this one up and move on. I literally l...” He almost says something fucked up, “I literally like him and I have to do it right so that he doesn’t decide to date someone easier.”

“I don’t flirt with everyone,” Josh says, brow furrowed a bit, but way less offended than he should be by the unhinged words that Seungkwan hears coming out of his own insane mouth.

Can’t stop talking, though. “Oh, come on, I saw you and Big Matthew on Halloween. I can’t just pick whatever hot dude I want to lead on and make eyes at him until I get bored.”

Now Josh looks, if not offended, at least embarrassed. His eyes go a bit wide and he runs his thumb along the ridges of his cup as he huffs, “Um, Matthew and I are together.”

“Oh, really? Since when?”

“Like July, but can you please not tell anyone else yet?” Josh looks _really_ embarrassed now. “I still have to come out to my church, so.”

Oh. _Shit_. “Oh, Josh, oh my god.”

“I know, I like know it’s super late for that, but it’s kind of a big deal, and I haven’t been mentally prepared yet.”

Seungkwan is going to get on the next bus to Santa Monica and walk right into the sea. He says, “I’m not judging you, oh my god.”

“That would be a first.”

So maybe Seungkwan’s been living in an alternate reality for longer than he thought. Maybe Josh actually has a brain and Seungkwan is actually a huge homophobe. “Josh, I’m seriously so sorry.” Seungkwan has to stop deciding who people are before he even hears them talk. He relives an evil moment with Vernon when he says, “Take your stupid card back. You’re not paying for this.”

Josh looks different all of a sudden. His cheekbones still shine with natural highlight, his mouth still rests in a perfect little pout. But he looks like a real person now. Sincerely, he says, “Thanks, Seungkwan.”

Seungkwan is gonna be sick.

xxx

“Do you think I’m crazy? Like, when you talk about me to other people, do you say, _oh yeah, my deranged co-worker Seungkwan told me to organize the straws by color again_?”

Jeongyeon raises her eyebrows at him from where she is halfheartedly pulling a rag across the prep table. “I mean,” she starts, and Seungkwan cuts her off.

“Never mind,” he says. He pulls his phone out of his back pocket and scrolls through the notifications that he has been unable to deal with all day. Three texts from Vernon about inane details of his day and confirming if he should still come by the shop, two from Dahyun responding to the last round of Seungkwan’s panicked messages, a litany of increasingly hysterical group texts from the Wonder Girls who were clearly informed via Dahyun that Vernon spent the night at Seungkwan’s, a text from his mom wondering if he’s coming home this weekend.

He turns his back to Jeongyeon and leans against the wall, takes a deep breath and opens up Dahyun’s messages. His texts to her this morning started off as his usual hyperbolic hysterics, but over the course of the day have boiled off into a real, resigned worry that’s a lot less about what’s happened between him and Vernon and more about Seungkwan himself.

“Seungkwan, customers,” Jeongyeon has the audacity to call out to him. Seungkwan spins around, clutching his phone to his chest.

“Can you, for once, just cover me for a second?” Seungkwan snaps. “Like, how many times have I closed without you? When was the last time _you_ cleaned out the fryer oil? You’re late every day and I _never_ say anything. God.”

Jeongyeon raises her eyebrows and makes an offended sound in the back of her throat. “What is up with you?”

Seungkwan rolls his eyes and looks back down at his phone. Jeongyeon says, “FYI, you can just tell me you’re having a bad day and need a sec. You don’t have to make me feel like shit for things I didn’t ask you to do for me.”

Seungkwan’s head snaps up and his mouth falls open. Jeongyeon is already halfway to the register, greeting the customers at the bar with her lackluster service voice.

But the thing is, Jeongyeon is right. He’s so mean for no reason. He’s judgemental and sharp and neurotic. It wouldn’t be fair to drag someone into his mess of a life when they don’t have any idea what they’re getting into.

It is so typical that he is having a mental breakdown in the kitchen of Half & Half. It doesn’t feel poetic or cinematic at all. It just feels bad. He swallows and unlocks his phone again. The horrors in his inbox feel suddenly preferable to being alone with himself.

To Dahyun, one after the other, he sends:

_i don’t think it’s going to work out with vernon_  
_i think it was a bad idea_  
_and i’m not just... saying it. it’s not for stupid reasons_  
_i’m not chill_  
_like i can’t do that. and i shouldnt have pretended like i could because now we kissed and i feel like i’m going to die about it_  
_and i’ve been mean to him all day and it’s only going to get worse. every time i text him im like setting him up to fail. i timed his response earlier. i literally put a timer on to see how long it would take for him to respond to me_  
_that’s not OKAY_  
_im writing a text right now that i need you to look at before i send it ok?? and you have to be serious_

His phone starts ringing in his hand. _Dahyun Kim_. He sends her to voicemail. It rings again and he picks up right away.

“Hello my little ball of chocolate chip anxiety,” she says, chipper. “I received your crazy missives.”

“Yeah,” Seungkwan snaps. “I am crazy. Not being funny about it. I’m really not doing okay, okay? God. I screened your call because I knew you wouldn’t take me seriously. I shouldn’t have even said anything.”

“Oh, yo,” Dahyun says, and she sounds actually kind of offended. Seungkwan takes a sick sort of satisfaction in that, and god, that’s awful. He’s evil. “Cute attitude.”

“Ugh. Hold on.” He goes into the walk-in and closes the door behind himself. He’s nauseous, but he feels less like he’s going to throw up as the cool air washes over him. “Okay.”

“I wouldn’t have called you if I wasn’t taking you seriously,” Dahyun says. Her voice sounds very far away and Seungkwan feels very alone. The walk-in is all grays and tungsten blue light and rows and rows of gallons of milk which sends another lurch through his stomach. He can’t cry surrounded by milk. It’s too much.

“Seungkwan.” Dahyun waits. “SK. You’re not crazy. Read me your text.”

“Ugh, I can’t read it,” Seungkwan whines. He looks up at the ceiling. He feels so bad. He just wants to make it go away. No one should be able to make him feel like this. “It’s not his fault that I’m like this. I have to work on myself so I don’t turn into a monster because he hasn’t proposed to me after we kissed one time. Like, what’s _wrong_ with me?”

Dahyun sighs and it’s crinkly through the bad connection in the fridge. “Seungkwan.”

Seungkwan swallows. He puts her on speaker and navigates into his notes app. He takes in a breath and sighs it out. On the line, Dahyun drops something and Seungkwan starts to pace. He clears his throat. “Okay.”

“Hiiiiii V,” Seungkwan reads. “First of all, I want you to know that you are so good and sweet and I have enjoyed the time that we’ve spent together so much.”

“Oh, god,” Dahyun groans. He goes on.

“That being said, I don’t think we can keep seeing each other.” He pauses, scrolls. “I know that I was the one who said that we should keep things casual, but I don’t know why I thought I could do that when I’ve never been _chill_ about anything.”

“It’s not fair for me to put pressure on you for this to be serious so quickly. On top of that, I just don’t think I’m the right person for you.” Seungkwan sighs. He has to send this soon or Vernon is going to just show up at Half & Half like they planned.

“I’m so mean and moody and all-around too much and I don’t think I can help it. I’d rather cut things off now so that we can look back on this with good memories and maybe be friends again sooner instead of later. You’re really important to me. Thank you for everything.”

Dahyun is quiet. Seungkwan sits right down on the floor that he knows no one has mopped since he last mopped it two months ago and doesn’t even care about how disgusting it is. He is exhausted. He presses his back against the walk-in door and then a hand to his forehead.

“Have I always been this crazy?” Seungkwan asks, miserable.

“Don’t talk about my Seungkwan like that,” she says and it makes Seungkwan want to cry. “If you feel like you need to say this, then you should say it. And if he doesn’t have anything to say back, then he sucks anyway.”

“I’m not trying to _test_ him. Even if he says—whatever. I’m just not ready,” Seungkwan says decisively. He drops his hand back to his lap. He nods to himself and exhales. “Yeah. It’s not the right time. I’m going to send it now before he gets here.”

“Do you want me to come over later?”

Seungkwan copies the message and pastes it into his text with Vernon. He presses send and then closes out of the app completely. To Dahyun he says, “I sent it,” and then, “Maybe. I’ll text you.”

“Okay,” Dahyun says. “I love you, stupid.”

“I love you, stupid,” he echoes and hangs up. He feels all hollow inside.

In his hand, his phone buzzes. And then it buzzes again, and again.

The messages are from Vernon.

_Hi, I’m skateboarding right now but I want to talk about this_  
_I can be at h &h in like 8 minutes_  
_Can we talk?_  
_We can figure this out_  
_Love u_

xxx

“Seungkwan,” Jeongyeon yells. It’s muffled through the door of the walk-in. He has been staring at his phone, scrolling up and then scrolling back down to look at Vernon’s messages since he got them. Maybe about eight minutes ago. The door behind him starts to move, shoving him a little on the floor before he has a chance to to scramble to his feet. The voice that comes from behind the door this time is not Jeongyeon’s.

“Hey, Seungkwan?”

Seungkwan’s breath catches in his throat. “Hiiiiii.”

Vernon looks like he did this morning, still in his jeans and beanie from yesterday, and Seungkwan’s _Dangerous Woman_ tour shirt, but the expression on his face is unfamiliar. He looks concerned. Worried.

Vernon steps into the freezer with him. He shoves his hands into his pockets.

“Can we talk?” Vernon asks. He looks around at all of the milk, and then at Seungkwan shivering lightly in his thin work shirt. “Maybe like, outside?”

Vernon leans back on his heels. “Jeongyeon said to tell you you’re even now.”

“Oh wow,” Seungkwan says, in the exact tone of voice that Vernon usually uses, and then they both look at each other with big, surprised eyes. Seungkwan thinks, this is where they’d usually laugh, if Seungkwan didn’t have a meltdown and try to break up with Vernon from inside the walk-in fridge.

Vernon’s worried mouth turns up at one corner and Seungkwan’s whole chest contracts. Vernon is here when Seungkwan has given him every excuse not to be.

Vernon reaches for him and Seungkwan gives him his hand. Seungkwan blinks a few times and says, “Let’s stop freezing.”

He leads them out of the freezer, and Vernon shuts the door behind them. Together, they walk out of the back door and into the alley. Seungkwan has no idea what time it is, but the light is dying pink across the tops of the buildings. He takes a deep breath in and comes back into his body after running circles in his own head all day.

Seungkwan asks, his voice so quiet and unfamiliar to himself that it’s barely audible over the city sounds, “Was it like, a bad autocorrect?”

“What?”

Seungkwan has to stop saying everything but what he really feels. This is not a game he can outsmart so that he’ll never lose. It’s not a game at all. He lifts his head to look at Vernon, determined.

“Assuming it wasn’t bad autocorrect. Even if it was.” Seungkwan takes in an uneven breath and exhales. “I love you, too. I’m just being a freak about it.”

Vernon says, in his earnest, gentle way, “I get that.”

Seungkwan says, feeling upset with himself, “I don’t want to break up.”

“I didn’t really think you did,” Vernon says, taking his other hand. He looks lost. “But if you’re this freaked, that still sucks. And I know I’m bad at like, talking. So I’m sorry if you thought, like—”

He breaks off and sighs, and lets go of one of Seungkwan’s hands to scrub at one of his eyes. Then, he takes Seungkwan’s hand again. Vernon is fighting so hard for the words he thinks Seungkwan needs to hear, his eyebrows coming together seriously and his mouth thinning with frustration.

Instead of finishing his sentence, Vernon steps close to wrap Seungkwan up in his arms. The tenderness with which Vernon cradles the back of his head feels foreign to Seungkwan. He’s not sure that anyone has ever seen him as something needing to be treated with a softness like this.

Vernon murmurs, “I’m scared, too.”

With that, Seungkwan starts to cry, just a slow leak from the corner of his eyes into the shoulder of Vernon’s shirt. Of all the words he has called himself today, none of them have been as kind as _scared_.

**Author's Note:**

> for verkwan propaganda and more: [jwaz](https://twitter.com/eggtartsmom) & [lars](https://twitter.com/svt_nap) ♡


End file.
